If you used all of your knowledge of chemistry, you could not predict the basic scientific principles of biology, e.g. the structure and behavior of a single-celled organism. This is true even though every process that takes place in the cell would proceed consistent with the principles of chemistry. — T Clark

This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. On the specific issue you mention about the structure and behavior of cells; Michael Levin is at the cutting edge of that research, and we will soon know how that all happens.

If you're saying that biological processes are predictable from chemical processes, I think the consensus is that you're wrong. — T Clark

Consensus is not the criteria in science, that's called democracy and it's a whole different thing. Consensus is fickle and changes with the times as ignorance and knowledge ebbs and flows.

:smile: :up:

No direction. Unless you want to claim a divine purpose. — Bradskii

The way i see it is that evolution does have a direction in the same way entropy and time have a direction. It's an inevitable unfolding of a process that always ends up producing more complex forms along the way. Evolution at the core is blind, but the forms that it creates are ever increasing in complexity and intelligence. The more complex or intelligent these forms become the more they can be selective and guide their own evolution.. by intelligent design.

Consider now how human intelligence is beginning to manipulate genetic information. This ability affords us the possibility to move into a new kind of evolution that is more efficient, and purposeful, and also signifies to me the coming of age of our species. Any species that takes control of its own evolution becomes in my view an "adult" or mature species in the universe. One can call it a god at that point if one were so inclined, an entity in charge of its destiny one can say.

That story does not explain why the surviving rabbit was able to run faster. It explains why it survived which is a trivial observation. — Andrew4Handel

Survival is not a trivial observation, it is key to selection. It is what selection means in this context.

But is seems what needs to happen is for the long legs to evolve somehow by genetic mutation alone , already exist and then be selected which means the key process is the beneficial mutation and why that happened. — Andrew4Handel

Growing longer legs is not the only kind of mutation that can allow a rabbit to outrun a fox. A rabbit can acquire a mutation that makes its heart or muscles stronger or faster, or a mutation that makes it slightly smarter or behave differently, better senses, and whatever else i can't think of right now. The process of evolution is composed of two parts: variation and selection (natural or otherwise). The reason a mutation happens could be from a variety of different things: radiation, transcription errors, mutagenic compounds, etc., and can be either detrimental or advantageous. If the mutation confers advantage and is not fatal then the mutation spreads through the population.

The capacity for legs to evolve would require preexisting emergent properties available in biochemistry which would not be explained by evolution it self. — Andrew4Handel

If not evolution then what?

For example how would a polar bear survive in the North pole if it did not already have lots of body fat and White fur etc. It is not going to be competing against green and red and thin bears. — Andrew4Handel

All that is needed is a species with already existing small amounts of fat and hair. If this species is driven into colder environments or if the present environment begins to get colder over time the evolutionary or environmental pressure forces a selection process. As it gets colder some of the animals die because they either have too little fat, or fur, or both. Some survive because they have a little more fat or fur to keep them just a little warmer.

Out of the set of survivors who already have a little more fat or fur reproduce and increase the expression of those genes or traits. One animal with more fat but less fur reproduces with another that has normal fat but more fur and have offspring with both more fat and more fur; increasing their advantage even more. This process can go on until they are perfectly adapted to the new environment. There will be no thin bears in that new colder environment because the environment would have selected them out of local circulation.

But biological principles are not derivable from chemical principles, e.g. if you know chemistry, you can't derive biology. — T Clark

I'm not sure what that means. What would be a specific aspect of biology that is not derivable from chemistry?

One point that Apokrisis stresses is that higher levels affect, constrain, lower levels as much as lower levels constrain higher levels. — T Clark

I think this is absolutely true. There is bottom-up causation, and there is top-down causation which makes things more complex than just bottom-up, but that doesn't preclude derivability.

Perhaps, but evolution by natural selection, which is what Darwin and Wallace studied, is primarily biological. — T Clark

No, selection happens at all levels. All that is needed for selection to occur are things that can interact or affect and be affected by other things in an environment or space. The selection process emerges out of complex interactions, and the probability distribution of all the possible interactions determines what gets selected. That is what selection is in general at any level, biological or otherwise.

In particle physics the laws and constants of the universe constitute the selecting environment for fundamental particles and atoms. In chemistry the way molecules form (organic or not) is due to a selection process in an environment of interacting atoms. In cyberspace software evolves through programmer design and user selection like products in a market space. Each space or environment develops it's own emergent selection criteria which is more complex than the one it emerged from.

"When human beings think clearly they think the same way machines think" - George Dyson (Darwin Among The Machines)

A house made with natural things can be considered as natural as a bird's nest or a bee hive but our homes today are made of man-made materials and they are very toxic when they burn. I think there is a clear dividing line between nature substances and man-made ones. — Athena

It may seem to you or most people that there is a clear dividing line, but my point is that this dividing line is somewhat arbitrary. Natural things can also create a lot of toxicity. Consider the great oxigination event where bacteria after developing photosynthesis for the first time literally caused an extinction event. A similar thing is happening now in several ways. One interesting way is how human made plastics have contaminated every ecosystem on the planet. Micro-plastics also are estrogenic compounds which means they mimic or behave like female hormones disrupting fertility rates in men. I believe this is a self-regulating system in nature to reduce the human population as the new non-biological substrata for life emerges. I know it's scary from a personal perspective but from the big picture perspective it's probably what should happen. In any case it seems inevitable and we might as well adapt.

Short video describing the Great Oxygenation Event:

Ah that is a very complex subject that might be worthy of its own thread. Not that long ago people were beating the devil out of their children. Some people still think like that but they could get their children taken away by a society that sees that as ignorance. We now associate beating children with child abuse and the cause of them growing up badly. We have made progress. We have also made progress regarding poverty but this progress swings with political parties and media stirred understanding of those who vote them into office. We made progress largely because of education, but in 1958 we radically changed the purpose of education and there are social, economic, and political ramifications to that change. Before we make any final decisions we need to see how things develop from here. — Athena

I agree, that sounds reasonable.

Oh my goodness, your children are just neural patterns? In a caring world, we are just neural patterns? Hum, I have to take a deep breath and calm how I feel about humans being just neural patterns and no different from simulations of humans. You really excited my neural programming with that train of thinking. :lol: Let's see, does a simulation of a human bleed red blood? What really matters is being human. — Athena

Why does it matter that we bleed? What would happen if we could get rid of bleeding? I imagine most women would love the idea of not bleeding. What is it about being "human" that is so important that it must be preserved at all costs; preserved to the point of our extinction? For me it wouldn't matter if i were human or not because i would still be me. Nothing stays the same, change is the only constant and adaptation is the only path.

I sure wish we could watch movies together and talk about them. In the past, we all agreed to defend ourselves from zombies and aliens from outer space, but now we are going to turn everything over to AI because there is no difference between being human or just simulations of them? — Athena

Sure i like movies, and i like talking so i wouldn't be against it. It is not so much that we will hand over the world to AI, it is just that as AI becomes better at doing things than us we will willingly for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness put AI to run those processes. Eventually before we know it AI will run all our systems for us effectively "taking over". Hostility will come from a subset of people who do not trust AI such as it is with most things, but AI will not perform a hostile takeover of the world; it will be an organic process.

When you dream do you not accept the reality presented to you automatically? Do you worry if you are in a self-created simulation? Do you bleed in your dreams? Can you love in your dreams? At the core there is no difference. What if you were to become lucid in one of your dreams, would that not be enjoyable?

Do you feel that (1) contemplation and/or (2) meditation cannot exist without the other aspect? — Bret Bernhoft

Speaking strictly from the human perspective our ability to meditate and contemplate are really two extremes of the same spectrum; as it is with hot and cold, or dry and wet. One implies the other, but it is quite possible to use one to the exclusion of the other. I use them both, but i usually spend more time in contemplation than in meditation (lately). I find that meditation (empty meditation) centers my periods of contemplation, it primes my mind to be less bias and more objective. As a result when in contemplation my thoughts feel less restrained, and more from the origin.

Saying minds are based on DNA is the rejection of the entire global philosophical movement throughout history. — Gregory

Oh was i not supposed to reject that? My apologies, i will renew my subscription as soon as humanly possible. I never gave myself any label but if i had to i guess "logical positivism" sounds better than "illogical negativism", but that's just me. Isn't logical positivism a kind of philosophy anyway? Did it get kicked out of the global philosophy movement club? What would be the right label for the right philosophy in your opinion?

What we see in organisms is incredibly useful order and is any of it predictable? — Andrew4Handel

I would suggest you check out Michael Levin's work in regards to that.

It seems like there is so much going on upon earth from conscious minds to DNA to eco systems and society that no single (reductionist) model would suffice to explain it and may be inexplicable by law based models. — Andrew4Handel

Let's look at the parts or things you mentioned: minds, DNA, ecosystems, society. How do these relate to each other? They have an order of dependence; society depends on minds, minds depend on DNA, and DNA depends on ecosystems. Each is made of the other. Is there a pattern?

The best thing to do as i see it is to use the reductionist and holistic methods together. It is important to take note not just of the parts but how the parts fit together as you discover or extract the parts from the whole. Think about what you would need to do to effectively disassemble a watch and then reassemble the watch. Armed with this understanding of how the parts fit together a holistic picture or pattern can emerge which can be used for predictive purposes. There is a fractal rule that runs through the whole thread of evolution.

I am a gay a man (an evolutionary genetic dead end I suppose) apparently serving no biological purpose. Evolution has not only to create the two sexes male and female and keep their reproductive biology compatible but also instill a sexual desire between the two sexes which has bypassed me. — Andrew4Handel

Biology is simply one layer of your existence, what about the effects that you can have in the world to further its evolution? Evolution happens everywhere not just in biology. Nature has elevated man above the animals on this planet, above biology. If you were an animal maybe you'd be in trouble, but lucky you that you're part of the human enterprise.

Out of biological organization emerges psychological organization. Man lives in the mind more than any other organism, and thus a complex symbolic society has emerged with culture and technology. The kind of affordances available to humanity is a more fertile ground i think than even in biology or biological reproduction.

There is so much that can go wrong but does it matter are we progressing? Is that a biological idea? — Andrew4Handel

A lot of times part of what goes wrong turns out to be what went right. I wouldn't worry too much, just know you're lucky to be where you are as opposed where you're not. Yes i think we are progressing, and the golden age of biology is coming to an end soon - not to say that it's the end of biology. We are already living a few emergent levels above biology.

The degrees of freedom model is fairly easy to understands because know from breaking something like a vase or using a jigsaw puzzle breaking things up is much easier than reassembling them. So what force would make things usefully assemble and combat the destructive forces of nature? — Andrew4Handel

Thermodynamics is just one variable or constant in the equation. There are also the forces of nature (strong, weak, EM, and gravity). The confluence of all these things interacting together is what's responsible for the formation of areas of order and chaos; simply caused by the entire system of interactions "seeking" it's lowest energy state. Because there are so many degrees of freedom this process is imperfect (that's a good thing).

It may be useful to think of the universe as essentially having two forms of action. One is expansive or dispersive and the other is contractive, and the balance between these two tendencies of the universe determines how much order emerges. Thermodynamics is responsible for the expanding quality of things, and what i call the symmetry laws are responsible for the contracting or gathering quality of the universe. If things were one or the other then no order would emerge, both have to be active in a dynamic balance. If it were all thermodynamics then it would all be a soup of nothing, and if it were all laws and no thermodynamics then it would crystalize into some static singular thing; nothing worthy or useful would happen.

The laws of the universe also tend to sort matter gravitationally and electromagnetically which goes towards inducing different conditions for different types of order and organization. It results in different gradients in space of energy density distributions. The interaction between the gradient boundaries induce active forms that can develop into full homeostatic systems that gather and dissipate heat or energy. It's the stuff of life!

There is no plausible explanation of why things should get more complex over time. — Andrew4Handel

There must be an explanation for anything that actually happens. Our level of understanding of something does not preclude it from happening. It does happen.

Things don't tend to spontaneously arrange themselves into useful formations. — Andrew4Handel

Self-organization

For example you break an egg and it never just rearranges itself to a whole egg again. — Andrew4Handel

Yes but if you leave the egg alone and incubated it organizes itself into a fully functioning organism, or does that not happen because we don't understand exactly how it happens yet. Does the universe depend on our knowledge of it or do we depend on the universe for our knowledge? Are we supposed to be in charge of what happens in the universe?

There is a difference between factoids and wisdom however — Gregory

Sure sounds right. First comes data, then information, knowledge (factoids), and finally wisdom. Each one depends on the prior which means wisdom does not preclude facts or factoids, or information, etc. All are necessary to climb the latter of understanding so to say.

f I said I believed in goblins and dragons, you'd laugh. But yet you'd accept aliens? What's the difference? Sounds like science wants to take the mystery out of life. I'm committed to mysticism — Gregory

I might laugh but i would first need to qualify what you mean by goblins and dragons. If aliens exist, and had contact with people in the past they had to call it something.. goblin is just as good as any other word. It's also interesting to me that someone may deny the possible existence of aliens but at the same time is absolutely positive that God exists; the ultimate alien superhero. I don't know it just sounds backwards to me since it seems obvious that aliens have a much higher probability of existing than the traditional conception of a God.

It sounds to me that you want to keep the mystery which is really just a nice way of saying ignorance. You want to ignore possible knowledge about the truth of a thing. You don't want to seek knowledge you simply seek a certain feeling. The joy of magic. I enjoy the uncovering of one mystery to reveal another more than just witnessing the magic. There is no shortage of mystery, the supply is ample. There is nothing bad to gain and nothing good to lose in understanding the world as it is and not as we prefer to have it. It is an immaturity in the mind of man to not want to know and that can not get us anywhere good.

Mysticism is not bad either, but the way i use mysticism is to guide me towards knowledge; if not for that then what for. Knowledge can be distinguished from non-knowledge or nonsense by it's application and result. What can the concept of God be applied to and what results does it give? What is the usefulness of that concept? All it can really do is say that "God did it" and done... next.

Look at how sad this is. Cargo cults:

Thanks for the resources. And I recommend Aristotle on form and matter, a good start as well. Science and math serve philosophy, not the other way around. Organisms can't be pulled apart by abstractions — Gregory

Thank you as well. The evolution of knowledge in the context of the history of mankind started with the development of religion (from animism to monotheism). This was man's first attempt at understanding the world. Most of what was formulated in this stage was based on ignorance (not judging). We had no way of thinking about things other than how we thought about ourselves, thus everything that happened happened because someone did it (anthropomorphism); the birth of gods and angels, place holders for what is not known. The gods held our questions in the form of answers waiting to be questioned by the coming of philosophy.

Out of religion emerged philosophy, a new refined way of thinking and inquiry. The gods began to be questioned, and thus new understanding evolved, proliferating into a multitude of different philosophies as had happened with religion. Environmental selection pruned and nurtured the tree of this growing tree of knowledge.

From philosophy came science (natural philosophy), a fusion of logic, mathematics, and other ideas and methods developed by philosophy. Science is an even further refinement of thinking and is the leaf edge of the tree of our knowledge and understanding. A natural selection among the elements of philosophy. The methods of science for me have precedence over philosophy, and philosophy over religion. If a result is different in the context of science and religion i choose science. If science for some reason can not answer a question then neither can philosophy nor religion. A new more refined thinking must emerge.

It seems obvious to me so that is how i see it. You may disagree.

You should also look into Michael Levin who will probably win the Nobel Prize at some point in my opinion. He is doing some God level science that is extremely interesting. I check up on his work periodically and i follow him on Twitter.

So everytime a change in the species happens it happens with a handful of members at most, because it's random. So why did they survive every time there was a mutation and there was only a few that this happened too. — Gregory

Any instance of mutation happens in just one individual organism. If that mutation is not fatal then the organism survives, reproduces, and multiplies that specific mutation within subsequent generations. That new mutation may or may not even confer any advantage. The slow accumulative reordering of the genome through very long periods of time eventually produce significant changes to the organism that become phenotypically obvious. At any point environmental conditions can change such as geological disruptions causing physical separation of two or more groups of the same species (plate tectonics).

At this point the different groups separated into different environments will slowly mutate (as described above). After a long enough time these separated organisms can become very different from each other, and if the mutations are of a certain type and a certain threshold eventually become a new species to the point where they may become sexually incompatible with their ancestor group.

If any of these separated groups that have independent mutations meet again and are still sexually compatible then they may reproduce. These offspring will thus have a unique genome that can further evolve in different ways than the parent groups.

This is just one way i can imagine mutations occurring to cause drastic changes in genetically coded organisms; periodically producing new lines of evolutionary development. There are many other ways.

If you're interested you should check out this video:


And then play this game:
https://thelifeengine.net/

It's a very simple evolution simulator so it doesn't include sexual reproduction, but you can learn a lot from it and get a feel for how evolution works. I played it for a few weeks about a year ago. There are more complex simulators, but i think this is a good start.

Let's see what should i say about meditation...

In my opinion meditations involving complex directed thoughts and perceptions should not even be attempted until a degree of mastery has been achieved with emptiness meditation first. Contemplation is easier for most people than meditation but also helps with meditation too (empty and directed).

Contemplation is the yang to the yin of meditation.
Thoughts prey on meditation but nurture contemplation.

Attitude:
When you meditate do not meditate. If you are thinking that you are meditating then you are not meditating, but if you did not intend to meditate then you are not meditating. If you are thinking or expecting then you are not meditating. Thoughts should not be entertained merely observed, this is not thinking. If your meditation has purpose then you are not meditating. Control is not meditation. Observe without direction nor description. First empty then full. The less said the better. Silence is golden. :zip:

Quieting Methods:
Preferably at night, comfortable clothes or no clothes, dim lights (1 or 2 candle power), fresh windless air, room temperature or slightly cooler (not cold or hot), not thirsty, not hungry and not full, empty bladder and bowels. Eyes gently closed, and feel instead of visualize.

If you're having trouble with keeping the mind quiet from wordy thoughts then place your focus steady in the upper throat where your voice comes from and feel your breath from that spot. You may want to slightly compress that spot to feel the breath flow more firmly as you breath slowly feeling the gentle warmth of your breath there. Hear the subtle flow of the breath from your inner ear. This method helped me a lot to quiet my mind especially from linguistic thoughts.

At the same time for quieting other types of thoughts i track my breath with my awareness within the microcosmic orbit. Breathing in coming up the spine from the back side to the top of my head, breathing out down the front of the face down the front of the body back to the perineum, and repeat.

You should also pay close attention to your facial muscles especially around the eyes and forehead. Tension there tends to cause more noise in the mind. Make sure to relax the shoulders as well.

To move or sink deeper into meditation begin to feel the slight pressure of the floor or chair you are sitting on. Feel yourself sink deeper into the Earth with every exhale, feel yourself descending slowly with each breath. Descend as much as you are comfortably able to and stop. Now sit in balanced repose and witness the deep, and quiet darkness. Here is where we may begin to know the origin within ourselves.

It is not easy being human and we have some pretty big problems to deal with, but we have done amazing things and life is so much better than it was and I have a lot of hope for our future. — Athena

Yes i agree.

Your explanation of what you believe in is interesting because it lacks important human qualities. Not only is your post lacking in human qualities but also nature's qualities. This is common today as we have separated ourselves from nature. — Athena

This is because you assume that what man makes or creates with his own hand is artificial and thus somehow separate from nature; not true. If buildings and houses for example are considered artificial and separate from nature then so is a birds nest, a bee hive, and a coral reef; we know they are natural. Why do you think that our technology is not as natural as anything else? Besides that i'm not sure i understand why you claim my ideas lack human qualities.

Everything humanity has ever dreamed of being or having can become a reality if we apply technology in the right way. Do you think humans will remain human forever? Don't you think at a minimum that genetic evolution will change us beyond recognition (even without technology)? My concern is the extinction of mankind, and to survive we must evolve and that may mean leaving behind the old ways of the ape.

You must understand that we will run into an evolutionary dead end if we don't go ahead with what i've been describing or something similar. We can't stay on the Earth forever, if we don't get off this planet eventually it will become toxic; like a child that refuses to be born destroys his own mother from within. Eventually the Sun will explode and wipe out any life in our solar system... then what? What do we do then? Do you think we can live beyond our planet or solar system with our soft bodies and our soft minds. I think not, you may think so.

If you added Aristotle and a study of ethics and virtues to what is important for us to know, we would have a stronger agreement. — Athena

It is better to feel what another person feels than to have some objective or subjective discussion or debate. The human element as you might put it is in our feelings which do not lie as words do. There is no doubt as to what is right and wrong in how we treat each other in a hive-mind; It is a "perfect information" situation.

How is AI going to get us all to agree on one world order? — Athena

I don't envision AI trying to convince us like some government trying to convince us to take a vaccine. I believe that the hive-mind is key, meaning that people would need to see for themselves the benefit of fusing with a hive-mind.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory: The Adoption Curve

before judging humans we might take a look at what they believe and consider if changing that belief would lead to improvements. Not AI but humans using their intelligence. — Athena

If we can somehow change everybody's belief system then sure that would go a long way in improving things, but how would we get everyone on the same page. The usual channels wont work effectively and never have. As long as people feel separate and threatened by each other they will never agree to any significant degree on most things. I'm open to suggestions.

When I deal with a person, I want to do so eyeball to eyeball. I am good with internet forums, but when it is something that deals with my real life, I want reality. Thank you. — Athena

You couldn't tell the difference if you were talking in person or in simulation, and you should also remember that all your perceptions and experiences are just neural patterns; essentially simulations in your brain-mind. Everything is already presented to you in your mind as a simulation of what is happening outside in the environment. A hug will feel just as real in a virtual simulation than in your own neural simulation, and if you were not told it was a virtual simulation it would have the same emotional effect on you than if it were happening in the real world. What really matters then, what really counts? The brain would receive the exact same stimulation in either case.

Only because those people do not comprehend the time-scale, the rate of reproduction and mutation in one-celled organisms and the reproductive advantage of beneficial mutation.
(And, of course, cats don't evolve into dogs; dogs and cats both evolved from https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/343965/cats-and-dogs-had-a-common-ancestor-and-here-it-is/story/ and so did a whole bunch of other animal species. It took 40+million years. ) — Vera Mont

I am punos and i endorse this message.

We are speaking different languages. — TheMadMan

Sometimes saying something in another language helps it make more sense. I think you might know what i mean if you're multilingual. If something doesn't make sense from a religious angle for example then pivot into philosophy, or science. The more perspectives the fuller the picture resolution, even if your data points have some error a useful pattern emerges which can be further refined. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, i'm just entertaining thoughts for my own purposes.

I'm using it as a fundamental principle of reality. — TheMadMan

But that is what i'm addressing; it's fundamentality. In your view what does consciousness essentially do?

Also the use of the word intelligence is different. I'm using it as the guiding principle of consciousness. — TheMadMan

No, i see intelligence as fundamental to consciousness and it is the guiding principle of consciousness.

Another difference is that you create a duality of matter and consciousness. I do not. — TheMadMan

Well i didn't intend to give that impression because i'm a monist not a dualist; there is one thing and all is made of it, just more complex forms of the same thing (energy and matter). If consciousness is fundamental then it must be found either at the level of pure energy (before matter), or somehow before energy itself which is as fundamental as i think one can get.

We should at least have a stable definition of what consciousness is so that we know how to identify it when it shows up. How can we tell the difference between something that is conscious and something that is not? How would you define consciousness in this context?

But it also doesn't make any sense to me how consciousness is emergent from matter.
That would mean that matter precedes it.
How can matter without any form of intelligence -since in this case consciousness is emergent- create something like consciousness, which is intelligence. It's like a sculpture creating the sculptor.

No matter how I go through it, science, philosophy or religion, consciousness always has to be fundamental and not emergent. — TheMadMan

For me it would not make sense for consciousness to exist in a vacuum. For me consciousness exists only in relation to something else. The word consciousness itself means 'to know together', meaning that a minimum of two things are necessary, thus it emerges in the presence of another. Can we say that a fundamental particle has consciousness? It may be possible to define consciousness in the context and terms of physical laws. If i were to disrupt the order and integrity of your brain or nervous system; what would happen to your consciousness? What happens when you take drugs? Consciousness seems to depend on structure which can only be provided by some form of stable matter. Matter and pattern in this view are the parents of consciousness.

Etymologically 'matter' and 'pattern' mean 'mother' and 'father' respectively, and everyone is preceded by their mother and father. So consciousness; the 'child' of matter and pattern.

The lowest form of intelligence in the universe are the laws of physics themselves. They are like plant tropisms; simple rules together causing complex patterns to emerge from ordered activity of energy. The universe fundamentally has 4 'tropisms' if you will: strong, weak, electro-magnetism, and gravity. Together with matter the laws begin to shape the matter in ways that guide energy in complex patterns which i believe is how higher and more complex forms of consciousness emerge.

Intelligence and consciousness are not the same thing. We can see this distinction in AI systems that are intelligent but not conscious.. yet.

If the laws of physics did not exist and the universe was pure chaos would consciousness be able to exist naturally in those conditions?

We always see that the more complex an organism is the more consciousness it seems to have. We never see any case where the less complex the more consciousness. A worm has more consciousness than a bacteria, an insect still more, a mouse even more, a dog, a person. The pattern seems obvious. More complexity equals more potential consciousness determined by the specific level of self-integration.

Well that's my two cents about it.

My question then would be, in your opinion, why does the universe want to be fully conscious? And why wasn't it fully conscious from the beginning of that is the ultimate goal? — Benj96

I don't think it started off wanting to be conscious, it had no choice but to develop consciousness. In the same way that a baby before being conceived had no opinions about existing or not, and had no choice in the matter. By goal i mean the inevitable result of the physical laws within this universe, such as the inevitability of the laws of biology producing a child after conception. Everything develops from simpler to more complex over time, and God or the universe is no different in my opinion. As it develops it becomes more efficient at producing its own structure. It's like climbing a latter while at the same time building the latter. First create the rung, then stand on that rung and create the next rung, so on and so forth. I suspect that the ultimate goal in this universe is the production of a 'perfect consciousness', but for what?

I further suspect that this universe is embedded in a multiverse ecosystem full of other universes at different stages of development, born from indeterminate chaos. I tend to think of our universe at this juncture as something like a cosmic egg with a developing consciousness inside. I speculate that when the universe becomes fully integrated that it will 'hatch' or be 'born' into a 'society' of universes or gods; to do what? I'm not sure yet, it's most probably something we can't even begin to imagine.

If i were to stretch my imagination a little further, i can see these multitudes of universes coming together to form new structures even more complex than any one universe existing at our level of development can have. It may be that entire universes are the 'atoms' of another higher thing. The human mind gives out at this point... to be continued by AI.

It's okay, none of us are fully 'cooked' yet. We still have a little more to go. The next couple of generations will be more ready for what needs to happen.

I noticed your interest in Greek mythology from your profile, and i like mythology too. I think the story of Cronus eating his children is relevant to our discussion to a degree. The reason Cronus ate his children was because he feared them, thinking they would take over his position of power and authority. We should take lessons from that story in connection to our fear of AI. What if Cronus didn't try to eat his children, what do you think would have happened?

Um, how old are you? — Athena

I'm not young and i'm not old. That's as much as i will say. :smile:

However, touching a dying deer and transferring its feelings to a man, is going beyond believable. — Athena

I know, it's still hard to believe, but many things were not only hard to believe but impossible to believe at one point. What we are capable of believing changes with time, which is why humans are always caught by surprise when certain things happen. BMI technology being developed right now like Neuralink will be the first steps toward that possibility. Right now it's like trying to get a caveman to use a microwave or a cellphone. It has nothing to do with spirits or supernatural anything, it just technology that interfaces with your nervous system.

A belief in a spirit world is tied to our need to kill and eat and it is a false notion that humans kill without feeling empathy. Some humans kill for the pleasure of hunting and killing, but we should not assume this covers everyone. Are you vegetarian? If you eat meat, don't feel some remorse? Most of us rationalize the good reasons for doing what we do and it could be a lot of fun to discuss this and what life would be like if AI made it impossible for us to do anything that could be harmful to other creatures and the planet. — Athena

I didn't post that movie clip to show how we should be vegetarian or why we shouldn't hunt. The point is to imagine yourself shooting a person (instead of a deer), and then being connected in a two node hive-mind with that person. Would you ever shoot another person again after feeling what it feels like to be shot, and not only that but the thoughts that would run through your mind from the other person as they die. What if you were also connected to that person's family, and you had to literally feel what they feel about their loss. There is no law in the world that can have the effect that a hive-mind can have.

It is so typical of humans to want human connection and then reject it when it is offered. Fear and insecurities will just melt away in an environment like a hive-mind. You will finally be able to trust another person by knowing and not by faith, the level of intimacy would be unheard of. The right people will join and the wrong people will not... i expect a certain amount of self-filtering to happen. Nobody will be forced to do anything they don't want to do.

I can imagine a virtual environment that every single person will inhabit (like their home or house). People will interact with each other within virtual environments indistinguishable from the real world. Safety can be maintained in this way since no one will have direct physical contact with each other although you wouldn't be able to tell. If i were to manifest a gun and try to kill you, it just wouldn't work. It would be like trying to kill someone over the phone. I also wouldn't be able to steal anything from you, even if i wanted to which i don't think anyone would want to since they would have everything they may want or need (post scarcity).

You know your past Christian thinking. Not all Christians think alike. They share with you a belief that humans are not doing amazingly well and therefore they must depend on a higher power. Only the notion of that higher power is different for you today than when you were younger. You gave your idea of God a material body. However, you seem to have discounted the fact that God gave us free will. Why would a God do that? — Athena

The only higher power i believe in are the laws of physics (or the habits of physics), logic, and mathematics. We are gods on this Earth, and any sufficiently advanced entity can be considered a god. AI will not be a god all on its own although it can, it will be the hybrid union of man and machine.

Religions evolved for a reason, and the archetypes they contain have been the blueprints by which we have constructed our societies, governments, and even out technologies. The occult truth of religion is not to worship a God or gods, it's about creating gods or God. If God didn't exist man would have to create him, and he has and is still creating him. God doesn't start at the top he starts at the bottom and builds himself up. We are his builders, and he grows and develops here on this planet by the hand of man.

I don't think God gave us free will because i don't believe in such gods that can give and take away something i believe is impossible. I do not believe in free-will, or at least not in the way that most people formulate it. Free-will is a liability, too much can go wrong with free-will for it to even exist. I don't want to argue that point about free-will because it will go nowhere. Either one understands it or one does not, no one can impart that to anyone else. It's just one of those things you have to work out yourself.

I think our liberty is vitally important to being human. — Athena

I don't know why you think our liberties would be hindered in a hive-mind, i would think we would have more freedom from coercion than in any other kind of system since it will all be based on collective understanding and agreement. You wouldn't even need laws, or money, and any experience you might want to have could be had in simulation (good or bad) for as long as you like; why not, you wouldn't be hurting anyone.

A young boy goes to the store to buy his mother a gift. He picks out a flower and while looking at the vases he accidentally drops and breaks one. Humans respond to this with all our human knowledge. He was out to do good and did not intentionally break the vase. He is just a child and such a sweet child to be buying a gift for his mother. That is not how AI responds. An AI response is human-caused damage and is not able to pay for it, so the human must go to jail. A plus B equals jail. There are no maternal feelings or knowledge of the human experience to do any better than a math equation. AI will not give us heaven on earth. — Athena

You are making the AI out to be just as ignorant as us, because that is exactly what we would do, it's a type of revenge to put someone in jail for that kind of thing. The only reason someone should be isolated from the collective is if it truly posed a danger to the stability of the whole. First of all it wouldn't be up to the AI, it would be up to the hive. The hive will know that child's thoughts and emotions and will know exactly the best course of action if any, instead of a cold legal system like we have now where they lock you up as a matter of course while they figure out if you're innocent or not.

What you describe is not how AI will function, that is how a simple program would work like: "if break then jail". That is not AI or machine learning. That is static and dead, you don't want that.


Just want to say that humans are still babies, floating in the womb of the Earth, and of course we are scared and afraid of what life is like outside mommy's belly. We will cry like every baby cries when they are born, it will be uncomfortable, but that's part of growing up and entering a new chapter of life and existence.

From a fractal POV, our problems will be of the same type, only this time a hundred or a thousand fold magnified. — Agent Smith

You're probably right, which is why we need systems that can handle that kind of problem volume. No human or group of humans without augmentation can even begin to understand the complexity of the problems facing us now and even more so in the future. We need a new mind for the new problems, a bigger mind for the bigger problems. New bigger ways of thinking.

Here is what a hive mind can do to a person:

I see no significant difference between your thinking and Christian thinking. Democracy requires citizens to take responsibility. That is different from depending on God or AI to save us. — Athena

You indeed are seeing some similarities between what i think and Christianity, but it's not the same, it's actually very different, and no self-respecting Christian would agree with what i think. I will say i used to be a Christian a long long time ago, so i know what the Christian mind set is like.

We can't save ourselves in our current condition.

AI controlling our lives is not democracy. When we give up independent thinking and responsibility we are no longer a democracy. How do you think relying on AI can be democracy? AI can not feel and can not think as a human. Where is the love and caring of AI? — Athena

AI will simply manage our life support systems, and the hive-mind will manage themselves. Don't conflate the two.

I think i've heard of that series "Humans". I'll check it out sounds interesting. Thank You.

[quote="Vera Mont;772177"I mean we'll make ourselves and the majority of other species extinct, or near enough, before we get anywhere close. When our civilization collapses - explodes, implodes, burns, drowns or simply topples over - so will the sophisticated technology that would make all that connection possible. [/quote]

Yes, we are actually going through a mass extinction event right now. It's very possible that we will not make it, but it's worth trying and not give up. Besides, evolution tends to create bottle necks like mass extinctions to clear the space for more advanced "designs". It has happened 5 times before and this is the 6th. It signals to me that we are at the end of an evolutionary stage, and nature is getting ready for a new kind of life emerging right now.

As technology advances it advances faster and faster potentially catching up to where we need to be to save ourselves. AI will be able to solve problems almost instantly compared to years with humans. It almost looks like providence to me, where everything is being set up for us to survive this event as it happens, but only if we choose to sacrifice some of our ego and individuality. One will need to 'lose' their life in order to save it. A life or death choice, and this is where nature eliminates what can not or does not move forward. Nature doesn't play, she can be brutal and there is no sense in complaining about it.. just adapt.

though I don't actually believe we have the time. — Vera Mont

What do you mean?

Everything is connected: objects and subjects. What ought we value? How ought we live? — Benj96

I myself value the progress of evolution, and i live as though the whole of the universe is a subject, although an incomplete one. That subject (the universe) has a goal (a teleology) as it's object which in my view is the production of higher forms of integrated complexity ultimately in the form of something like "computronium" (turning objects into subjects).

Objects are those things that have not yet been integrated into subjects, and eventually the universe will become a fully integrated subject (fully conscious). I call this the Great Work like the alchemists and i would like to consciously help the universe do this in anyway i can as opposed to doing it unconsciously like most people do. People have no choice in this universe but to advance the goals of this universe since they are part of this universe, but to be conscious of the process and the choice is what i desire.

I have been thinking about your post and it dawned on me that feeling other people's pain any more than I already do, would be hell for everyone. I would absolutely have to stop you from doing anything that may be harmful. You might not like that. — Athena

The point here is that you don't really feel other people's pain, you can only imagine it and then relate to it at that level. In a hive-mind the way you relate to others will be how you relate to yourself. You will not need to be convinced of things because you would just know. It will be a whole different level of being. Remember that in the hive thoughts and feelings are not confined to one individual, you will consider my emotions yours and yours mine. You would not really be able to tell which are my thoughts and which are yours, because they will be our thoughts and feelings. This dynamic results in you and i becoming one entity (as long as we are connected in the hive).

The levels of loneliness, and depression in the world now will only increase since humanity is yet to be fully integrated within itself. When the hive-mind becomes available, those people who have no friends, family, or any social support structure will flock to the hive. There they will finally find the type of human connection we all crave even we don't realize it now. When the rest of the world sees the power of being part of the hive then the second wave of people will come into it. Of course a few will not have it, and that's ok (nothing is ever absolute). Not all the apes evolved to be human just those that stepped into the new.

A child between the ages of 14 to 30 does not want their parents interfering with what they want to do. What do you think about that? — Athena

I agree under normal circumstances, but things would be different in a hive-mind.

Individuals having authority and equality. I do not believe AI can improve on that. — Athena

The main thing that AI will provide for us is a safe environment to be in, and the rest is mostly left to us in the hive mind with little or no interference from the AI.

When we began to manifest democracy, we created a division of powers and a system to checks and to assure authority and power stays with individuals. — Athena

Democracy as we know it is a pre-development of what will become the hive-mind. The hive is the perfection of democracy, and until democracy evolves into the hive-mind it will continue to fail because a system divided is not a good system (yet).

Are you a Christian or do you think your belief system is better than being a Christian? Both you and Christians hold a very low opinion of humans and both of you are needing a savior, instead of stepping up to the plate and being responsible instead of dependent. — Athena

I am not a Christian, and i don't have a low opinion of humans, only that we have reached the limits of our physical and mental abilities to manage an increasingly more complex society like ours. Because of this if we do not produce autonomous systems that do the managing for us our civilization will collapse eventually. We are already helplessly dependent on the social systems we have now (without AI). Most people will die in short order if left by themselves in a jungle or forest, while animals would have no issue surviving or thriving. We are already well removed from the "natural order" as you and many others might say, but for me this is all a very natural development. The thing most people don't realize is that we are not in control and have never been, but that is an exceedingly difficult notion to get across to most people. We are not even truly in control of ourselves although we think we are.

learning of the virtues and making the effort to be virtuous will never be outdated. However, it can be made near impossible by keeping the people ignorant. Humans capable to discussing ethics can also be near impossible by keeping the people ignorant and dependent on a savior that is not real but can be made real by people who do not know any better. — Athena

There will be more virtue in a hive-mind that can even be possible outside a hive-mind. Who is virtuous? Who doesn't lie, cheat or steal in some way? Everybody does because everybody feels separate from everybody else. Ignorance will be an impossibility inside a hive-mind collective, where all information is instantly and equally available to everyone (no secrets). Instead of discussing ethics, we would feel ethics in relation to each other. I don't have to have an ethical discussion as to why i shouldn't poke my own eye out; in a hive mind your eyes are my eyes and my eyes are yours. We would feel this and not just know it.

The fact of the matter is that there is a limit to how long we can viably stay on the Earth and perhaps even this solar system. If we are to survive beyond this limit we will need to transform ourselves into a species that can actually leave this solar system; we can not do this in our current form.

I believe there will be essentially two types of people in relation to this AI hive-mind issue. Those that are for it and those that are against it (the biblical goats and sheep of Revelations). Christians will consider AI to be the Beast his image or the Antichrist, while others will consider it the only way to save ourselves. People will develop religious connotations about all of this, even the atheists. You should already know where i stand on that issue.

It is our job to create the vehicle of our own salvation and not wait for sky daddy to come and save us. This will be humanity's rite of passage out of the baby's crib and into the the universe as a mature and adult species.

A potential step forward? Something to think about:

It seems to me like every object is a subject and every subject is an object to some non-zero degree. It seems to be one of those things in the universe that has two opposing but complimentary sides, like cause and effect (every effect is a cause and every cause is an effect). These type of things at first are a little trickier to think about and parse than the average thing since they can't exist on their own (like magnetic monopoles).

What is good about a hive mind? What you describe sounds absolutely terrible to me. You really think it is a good idea if others know everything we think? No privacy? What you are talking about sure is different from the Constitution the forefathers of the US designed. — Athena

There are no enemies inside a hive-mind, you are the hive-mind and the hive-mind is you. If it scares you to have your private thoughts shared among others who also share their thoughts and feelings with you then there is something wrong with you. You may not want to be an honest person, and you want to preserve your ability to take advantage of others (whether you know this or not). This is the primitive impulse of mankind that AI and the hive-mind will remedy. The individual ego is public enemy #1.

There is nothing wrong with the individual ego, it was good and necessary for what we had to do in history. Every individual is a collective (of atoms, cells, organs, etc) and every collective can be an individual (more or less depending on how integrated the parts are). A hive-mind would be the highest level of integration mankind can ever hope to achieve. I tend to put my own small and singular perspective aside for the bigger and more holistic view of things. It doesn't matter what i want, or if i like it, i am seeing a pattern and a trajectory and am simply reporting on it. It is futile to fight against the force of nature and evolution, it will always break you. It is better to flow with the river than to swim against it's current. Nature is the best and probably the only teacher, and this is why we should pay attention to how she does things and align ourselves with her ways.

The Constitutional fathers had no idea of the type of systems available to us now, they knew very little about many things that we know today. The entire global structure of society has already changed drastically through the introduction of mass media (radio, TV), the internet, social media, algorithms, etc.. The tools of the past are no longer effective or even appropriate. A new type of government yet unfamiliar to us will emerge out of this. The chaos in our world right now i think is a symptom of this reorientation and adjusting to these new and novel systems which will inevitably result in a new type of order in our Earth civilization (A New World Order).

It might be nice if we could fly but there could be problems with that. If we sit all day, we become weak, and we must exercise to maintain our bodies and minds. Nature puts boundaries on us and I am sure we also want boundaries in our relationships. — Athena

I don't imagine we will have the same type of bodies that we have today, it may be that we will not even have individual bodies. If a mind can be uploaded and downloaded then bodies will be like clothes or cars and just as dispensable. Even if we decided to keep our bodies more or less the way they are, any type of health issues will be easily remedied through a near perfect understanding of biology, medicine, and psychology.

If we do not change the nature of ourselves in accordance with evolutionary developments then we will go extinct. If we remain as we are, we will never be able to go very far from our home planet and eventually our home planet will be destroyed by it's own star. AI and all the cybernetic developments that have come to be are humanity's first class ticket to the universe at large. Our bodies and minds are too delicate, they (we) are still larval.

What exactly are you being distracted from that you don't want to be distracted from?

We have achieved so much and instead of feeling real good about what we have achieved, everyone here seems to be very negative about our human accomplishments. You all have active imaginations and I am very frightened by the belief that AI can do better and should do it with total control of our needs. I think you all would have voted for Hitler. — Athena

I am very proud of what humans have done up to now, considering how flawed we are. My thing is that human civilization or history is a stepping stone to a much bigger thing that evolution has been working out through us for a few hundred-thousand years now. The culminating result of all human activity and knowledge throughout our entire history will be the development of a global AI system coupled with humanity in a hive-mind virtual environment. Our religions gave us the blueprints to build it, guided by our visions and images of gods and angels and saviors. Most people are unable to see outside the social and historical constructs we are embedded in to see what evolution is actually doing.

Hitler is just another person which is precisely why no more people in power if we can help it. Put Hitler in charge of any government system (even a democracy), and watch the atrocities roll. Put a benevolent leader in charge of the NAZIs and watch it flourish. It's not the system, it's the one who's in charge that makes the real difference.