Things like slight angles of the head and difference in position aren't particularly relevant to the special relativity scenario under consideration. The key thing to consider is the difference in the velocity of the two 'observers', and particularly the component of velocity in the direction of Andromeda. — wonderer1

Totally agree, and the 'angle of head thing' was relevant to the London example. 'Movement of head' came from wiki, as if it's our head velocity that matters for some reason.
The movement of one frame as compared to another (either having a stationary head being irrelevant) causes a different angle in the time axis and at least one spatial axis in spacetime which produces large time discrepancy for worldlines of distant objects. That's the geometry of the situtation.

The text about the three-dimensional universe and differing content I took from the Wikipedia article linked in the OP. — T Clark

I think it was confusing for Wiki to introduce the notion of 'movement of the head' which at least suggests a velocity difference, but also 'offset in distance between observers' which seems to be totally irrelevant if they're stationary with respect to each other. Hopefully the actual Rietdijk–Putnam argument
was worded more carefully than that.

Imagine the plane of simultaneity for a pigeon walking with his head bobbing back and forth. I don't think anybody considers 'the universe' for the pigeon to be tipping wildly as it walks.

Each observer considers their set of present events to be a three-dimensional universe — Wikipedia - Rietdijk–Putnam argument

This line is also questionable, equivocating a plane of simultaneity with a universe, which makes it sound causal. I cannot think of a single interpretation of time that suggests such a thing. It's flat our wrong to consider any such thing,.

They apparently do quote some actual text from Penrose:

They can know only later, when telescopic observations from Earth reveal that the fleet is indeed on its way. Then they can hark back to that chance encounter, and come to the conclusion that at that time, according to one of them, the decision lay in the uncertain future, while to the other, it lay in the certain past. — Penrose

The latter bit seems unreasonable. If one is a presentist (there being an ontological division between past and future events), then movement of anything has nothing to do with where this division lies, but the statement suggests otherwise. If one does not posit such a division of events, then there is no 'uncertain future' and 'uncertain past'. The statement is thus wrong from any valid point of view. It seems to be there only to attempt to frame the scenario as paradoxical when in fact there is none.

As the article asks "Can we meaningfully discuss what is happening right now in a galaxy far, far away?" Answer - of course not. — T Clark

But despite the discussion of such events (the supposed invasion), it actually isn't what is happening that's important in the illustration, it is the time over there, which is the same for a given event despite the lack of measurement. So assuming two relatively moving observers (by a bicycle pace) on Andromeda looking at Earth, they see a clock over here, and very much know where Earth is at any given time, even if humans don't meaningfully exist to them. Yes, 2.5 million years is a long time to extrapolate the orbit of our planets, but it's a pretty predictable clock nonetheless.

Is that just because we don't know what is happening, or is it because there's nothing happening? — Michael

Answer to that is interpretation dependent of course.

but if special relativity is true then what's happening right now depends on our individual, relative velocities.

But SR just says that simultaneity is a convention, not any kind of ontological fact. So yes, the convention is dependent on definition of a frame, and it gets really tricky with Andromeda since the planet way over there is hardly stationary relative to Earth, so there isn't an obvious frame where both are stationary. Pretty hard to find an object stationary relative to Earth, even momentarily. Statistics say that something has to get close by chance now and then, but less likely for anything not nearby.

BTW, Relational Quantum Mechanics handles this sort of "paradox" quite well — Count Timothy von Icarus

The Andromeda thing is an illustration of spacetime geometry, not relevant to interpretations of quantum mechanics. Sure, the state of affairs at distant location X would constitute a counterfactual statement, meaningless under any interpretation that does not presume counterfactuals, RQM being one of those. But the event over there simultaneous with a given event here is still very much frame dependent regardless of the state (an invasion fleet existing at all say) at that distant location, hence no interpretation of QM really having any relevance at all to this problem.

I consider this "paradox" untenable since simultaneity cannot apply to distant events. — jgill

Andromeda is not sufficiently distant to invalidate Einstein's simultaneity convention, but admittedly something much further away (say 17 BLY) is indeed too distant for the convention since signals cannot be exchanged between the locations. There is no limit under special relativity, but special relativity does not describe spacetime at large scales.

Please explain how "even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three-dimensional universes to have differing content." And how can this purported difference in content cause a difference in simultaneity of months? — T Clark

I didn't claim the universe was three dimensional, nor did I claim multiple universes. Even the slightest angle results in an arbitrarily large separation at large distances since X sin(a) for a very small angle a can still be a large value if X is large enough. Likewise even a tiny change in reference frames results in a large (months) change in the 3D plane of simultaneity at a sufficiently large distances.
But a plane of simultaneity being 'a universe' seems to be something you're assuming. You seem to suggests a multiverse of different planes rather than some kind of single preferred plane of simultaneity, so perhaps not a stance of presentism. I would admit that simultaneity has nothing to do with frames and motion under presentism, hence the Andromeda thing being mostly irrelevant under it, but I suspect you're not asserting that.

Why would people walking in different directions have radically different perspectives of events in the Andromeda galaxy? — NotAristotle

They don't. They both see the same thing. But it's not about what they see, it's about which moment they consider to be simultaneous with moments here, no more radical than somebody facing north to consider London to be exact to his right, but somebody facing a tiny bit clockwise of north to consider London to be many km north of a line directly to his right.

If true, what does this suggest about free will, the future, and truth? — Michael

To suggest anything about these is to confuse coordinate simultaneity (which is what the Andromeda scenario utilizes) with actual simultaneity (certain events having a metaphysical state of 'has happened' or not). Special relativity really only concerns itself with coordinate simultaneity (merely a convention) and not with any statement of presentism or the lack thereof.

I don't think it's a paradox at all. It's only a paradox if one assumes the absolute Newtonian serial time must exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed, not a paradox, even if absolute time exists. 1) It cannot be Newtonian time. That has been falsified. If there is absolute time, then there is no 'according to person X or frame F', there is just reality and any coordinate system that doesn't correspond to that reality is simply wrong. No paradox whatsoever either way.

These arguments rely more (arguably entirely) on philosophy than scientific support, since the conjecture is arguably unfalsifiable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes

Since nothing travels faster than light the "pretend" observation of knowing what happens simultaneously lightyears away in a theoretical frame of reference is simply nonsense. — Benkei

Nothing in the Andromeda scenario suggests anybody 'knows' what's going on. OK, I take that back because the implication is that Andromedans want to attack humans, and there's no way they could yet have detected them since we didn't exist 2.5 MY ago. Similarly, Penrose says that 'the launch is inevitable' which bolsters the suggestion of lack of free will about it. But that's Penrose doing that, not Einstein.

The bolded text is certainly not true in any meaningful sense. The two observers are in the same frame of reference. Any inconsistencies between their so-called "differing" three-dimensional universes are trivial - light can travel from any point on Earth to any other in much less than a second. — T Clark

This is wrong. The whole point is that trivial differences in frame change have large swings of simultaneity at large distances. Sure, nothing suggests that a frame change (a mere abstract choice) has any kind of causal effect, but the difference in simultaneity is very much on the order of months in this case. Your statement seems to be in denial of this.

The implication seems to be that the only purpose of suicide is to somehow be a solution to past suffering. The conclusion follows only from this assumption, but it can be falsified by taking into account future suffering.

Two obvious cases: You're taken prisoner as a spy and have secrets that will be tortured out of you before you are put to death. Or you have a painful form of cancer making what time you have left a hell (and a financial burden) for yourself and your caretakers. You voluntarily choose to eliminate that suffering by taking an early exit.

Second case is dementia. You still have your marbles but know you have say Alzheimer's. In a short time you will no longer be of sufficiently sound mind and body and will doom yourself and your caretakers to the same burdens as above. The time to make the decision is now, not later when the marbles are lost.

Both cases above falsify the assertion made by Cioran. The latter one is more interesting since the time to make the decision is well before the action is to take place. It might be as little as some kind of DNR, but it might be a more proactive action to be taken by what will at that point be an unwilling state.

If the atoms in the brain continue to exhibit the exact behavior you would predict via physics given their mass, velocity, charge ect.. then you could explain the behavior of said organism simply knowing these things. This does not appear to be true for humans ... — Francis

It does not follow that a system being a purely physical process, that the behavior of the system can necessarily be explained. It may require a greater understanding than is currently possessed.
For instance, one could in principle simulate (down to the classic electro-chemical level) an entire human being and his environment, and the human would (per monism) behave and describe the same qualia as a human, and yet nobody (the simulated human, the computer, or those that programmed it) would have be able to explain this behavior.
Your comment also exhibits anthropocentrism, that concludes that only humans have this relationship since only they utter the word 'qualia', which is an incredibly poor assumption if you're going to examine this from an evolutionary approach. You seem not to maintain this through the paper, which is good. I mean, ants appear to experience pain, even if it obviously isn't human pain.

Anyway, not my point to debate your biases. I was wanting to read and comment on the paper since few do this sort of thing.

A simplistic definition of Monism is that it attributes a kind of oneness to the mind and brain.

I'd correct that to oneness to the mind and body, or rather, oneness to system and processes of that system. A brain is just part of it, and in isolation, doesn't have the attributes of which you speak.

You speak of epiphenomenalism, but there can be no evidence of this. The subject mind cannot report the qualia felt for instance, so any such report is not coming from it. I take it you're not supporting such a position.

You quote Robinson on interactionalism:
"mind having a causal influence over the brain implies that some matter in the brain of humans (and possibly some other organisms) is behaving differently than would be expected if that matter had been governed completely by the conventions established for their behavior by physics and chemistry."

This leaves the door open for other creatures, and it says in short that there must be a violation of physics/chemistry going on somewhere for this interaction to occur. I content that it doesn't necessarily need to occur in the brain, but it could be elsewhere. Heck, there are things that feel, experience, learn and teach, all sans brains altogether. Anyway, I agree about the physics violation, and it is that which should be sought out by the proponent of this position, instead of avoided as is the usual reaction.

Robinson says that 'physical closure' says 'every event has a physical cause' which quantum mechanics has shown not to be true, but one can note that biological process for information processing tend to evolve structures which exhibit classical behavior from quantum effects, just as do transistors say. Hence there does not appear to be structures designed to amplify quantum randomness. And trust me, if there was information to be had in reading such randomness, structures would have evolved to take advantage of it. We don't see that but it might be there. A search for such a thing is still a window for the interaction.

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness or “the minimum neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious experience.” (Wu, 2018) The Neural Correlates of Consciousness reference the set of objects in the brain which give rise to consciousness but does not exactly mention the reaction of the brain to consciousness.

I don't think Wu is using 'consciousness' in the same way you are, which is 'something separate to which a connection must be made'. Not sure. Maybe he is.

it is safe to assume this creature also had a primitive mind and experienced Qualia (the name given to single instances of subjective experience). So how did we get from these organisms to humans today?

Unimportant. If they're already connected to a mind, the question is how they went from a physical creature obeying physical law to one that isn't. The answer is how the chimp got there, not how some common ancestor of the chimp evolved into us. All this is moot if you can actually locate where the violation occurs, in which case one can simply backtrack, looking to see which being have such a mechanism and which don't.

So you should be looking for some mutation which causes the physical creature to gain beneficial information from non-physical sources. Did the mutation cause access to this 'mind' thing already there waiting for something with which to interact, or did the mutation somehow create something non-physical in such a way as to maintain a connection to it? I don't know your model.

Meaning, there was a first time the behavior of matter in the brain of some organism in our evolutionary past was altered from its behavior that would be expected if it were behaving purely by the conventions of physics and chemistry.

Yes, exactly, but still with the questions above.

From an interactionist standpoint, the only alternative to this conclusion is that the initial alteration in the behavior of matter happened before organisms developed brains.

Please don't discount this. There are non-brained things that potentially qualify. There are undoubtedly aliens which don't have anything resembling Earth biology. This is irrelevant of course in a pursuit of how it came about in Earth biology.

Some questions that could be asked are: In what organism did this take place? How long ago in our evolutionary history did it take place? What objects in the brain were involved? How many objects in the brain were involved?

Did it take place more than once? (plenty of examples of parallel evolution)
Were brains involved at all at the time?
You ask if consciousness was involved, but you've not really given your definition of that. I mean, I have a pretty loose definition of a system being able to measure its environment and react to it, but you probably envision something more complex than that, something on the order of 'is like me'.

You ask how many 'objects' in our brain are involved in [human] consciousness, which is dependent on your definition, but probably 'a lot of the cortex', but this implies that creatures lacking one don't 'feel' things, which is very likely wrong. The cortex is the slow part of your brain that is mostly the thing getting trained in all those years in school.

I am unclear on your section on experimentation. I don't see a proposal. Do X and measure Y. None of that. If you're not looking for the specific point of physics violation, then all you're seeming to be doing is searching for a better 'explanation' of the monist view. Once the 'violation' is isolated, you look for that structure in other beings to get a good idea of its evolutionary history.

Energy is required. A spark. — Patterner

A sack of hydrogen and oxygen has no energy? What does more energy do other than increase the rate at which they hit each other hard enough? A sack full of room temperature molecules will occasionally impart enough speed to some of the particles that they will react/combine. It's just slower.

What are the odds, and how are they determined? — Patterner

I think that's the right question. Dr Manhattan is perhaps assuming a model that yields sufficiently low probabilities (like ones that drop off over time so an infinite series of them converges to a low number). That's what makes it 'sufficiently unlikely'.

?? Reference, please. — jgill

For what? That 0.00[an awful lot of zeros]06 * 100[an unlimited number of zeros] yields something large? You require a reference for that or are you contesting something else?

has this been established as possible? — GRWelsh

No model has been specified, and in cases such as this, the model must precede the establishment of any facts such as the possibility of BBs. It's kind of backwards from the usual situation where the observations precede the model.

What is the argument and evidence to back up that claim? — GRWelsh

Again, the model precedes the evidence. Given the wrong model, there can be no evidence.

Case in point:

But it didn't come into that arrangement when a quintillion (whatever) particles all happened to bump into each other in the exact right arrangement. — Patterner

There we go. You have a model of pre-existing particles bumping into each other by chance. It's not the usual model, but a workable one.

You can shake a bag of hydrogen and oxygen, but you won't make water. — Patterner

Actually, that's pretty much how most of the water gets made, so I very much beg to differ.

Dr. Manhattan can say, "Thermodynamic miracles... events with odds against so astronomical they're effectively impossible, — Patterner

Astronomical odds are still finite, so when multiplied by infinite time, they become not just probable, but certain. I don't think you realize the size of the numbers they talk about when discussing these sorts of probabilities. They are astronomical indeed, and they don't need to be a human brain (or even a 3-dimensional construct). It just needs to be something in a state believing it is a 3d human, and believing in theory X.

The claim is "in an infinite duration we are more likely to be a disembodied brain." — GRWelsh

Who made that claim? Boltzmann? Carroll? Some poster above?
I don't see how it even makes syntactic sense.

I am questioning why we should accept that claim of probability?

I think you shouldn't, so I'm probably with you on it. To make such a claim is to totally misunderstand the BB issue.

And especially why should we accept it when it hasn't even been established that a disembodied brain -- simply appearing in space and time with false memories and lacking any sense organs -- is possible.

Now you're the one making a claim. Has it been established to be impossible? If not, what's left?

If Boltzmann Objects could exist, if the universe was infinitely old, we'd see billions of odd things floating around. — Patterner

This is flat out wrong. If BBs are more likely, then you probably are one.

Regardless, if we're not one, we do not expect to see one. Far more likely is space filled with Boltzmann 100 euro notes, and we don't see those either. One must understand the sheer improbability of these things, which become likely only when multiplied by the idiot amount of time given for them to occur.

If you are a BB, then we don't 'see' anything. It is a solipsistic existence. One cannot measure the age of the universe (have you ever personally done it?), and since there's nobody else to do it, there's no way to know.

No model predicts that anything (BB or not) actually sees something like this.

How can you even prove that disembodied brains are possible? — GRWelsh

Not a matter of proof. It's a function of the model behind which one chooses to stand. If the model (not reality) predicts a greater likelihood of being a BB, then the model cannot be justified. It is simply a method of discarding not wrong models, but the unjustifiable ones. If reality happens to actually correspond to something like that, then the nature of reality literally cannot be known.

f a working brain could assemble itself randomly, then a working brain with life-support equipment would also be possible. — RogueAI

Exactly. Given said life support (a far more improbable thing), then the BB would persist long enough to actually think (as opposed to just be in a mental state), and to perhaps sense things (presuming the life support included sensory organs).

A brain isn’t a bunch of pieces that can be put together like a puzzle. Even if all the necessary particles happened to bump into each other at the exact same instant, they would not be a working brain for even that instant. — Patterner

Can you back that assertion? It sure looks an awful lot like a collection of matter to me. And no, an BB would be these particles 'bumping into each other', which would give them momentum and such that a brain doesn't have. So the thing just appears by sheer chance, and yet, it is in a certain mental state at that moment. The next moment consciousness is gone because disembodied brains don't do so well in a vacuum, but a Boltzmann-Earth does fine in a vacuum and the inhabitants might take whole seconds to notice something wrong.
I'm admittedly not sure of how relativity deals with mass (of a brain, planet, galaxy or 'universe') suddenly appearing out of nowhere. It violates all sorts of conservation laws, but lacking a unified theory, I don't think we can dismiss the conjecture at this point.

Just as you can't place two pieces of wood end to end, and have one long piece of wood. — Patterner

You can, but it's super improbable.

Surprised so few have approached this experiment like Sabina. So basically the data is interpreted wrong? Sensors 3 and 4 are wrongly not considered together for comparison? — TiredThinker

I have found a serious unrelated error in another video of Hossenfelder's, so my trust is broken, and I find myself questioning this dismissal.

The two light paths to the signal detector D0 are the same length every time regardless of which detector gets the idler photon. If they interfere, there will be a bars always at the same locations, never out of phase. Sabine says that the pattern from photons detected at say D4 are out of phase and when combined with the D3 bars, results in no interference pattern. That means that for the idler going to at least one of the detectors, the signal light going up to the 'screen' is out of phase from it's counterpart, which cannot happen if nothing has moved. It cannot happen if the path lengths are the same each time.

Am I missing something? Has there been a peer review of Hossenfelder's video?

this thread is about physics and implied time travel. — Mr Bee

There is no information that can be sent to the past or FTL in any of these experiments. None of it constitutes time travel in any way. There are plenty of interpretations that explain the quantum eraser and explain entangled behavior in ways that obey the laws of locality and forward causation. It's only the counterfactual interpretations that need FTL explanations for these things, and even those don't propose information transfer to the past.
The topic is thus unrelated to time travel.

A few current examples come to mind. — Mikie

All your examples are from a left point of view. There should be some from both sides.

Somewhere in the middle seems to be the abortion issue, where neither party seems willing to consider for even a moment that the opposing side may have some points.

Do you see any hope that moral relativists might be open to the idea of moral universals? — Mark S

Some (members) are not open to any alternative ideas, be they concerning morals or something else. I try to always be open to anything, as evidenced by the fact that I've certainly changed views from time to time based on weight of a good argument, especially weight of an argument that drives a certain point of view to contradiction.
On that note, suppose there were no moral universals. Can you drive that premise to contradiction without begging said universals?

I am not familiar with moral relationalism (moral relationism?). — Mark S

In the topic of morals, it is usually referred to as moral relativiism. I use the words interchangeably since I take a relational view of almost anything (relational quantum mechanics, time, relational ontology, etc). Morals is part of that. Morals seem relative to a specific society or culture, and members outside the society/
culture in question cannot be held to that society's moral standards.

I can agree with your comment “acts to attain that goal are not 'evil' by that standard” if the subject is what is descriptively moral, but not if the subject is what is universally moral and immoral.

Exactly. There seems to be no evidence of a universal (objective) morality, so I'm good with the statement.

Here, universally moral refers to being moral in the sense of fulfilling the function of human morality, solving cooperation/exploitation dilemmas, and immoral if creating those cooperation problems within the group.

'Within the group' makes it sound relative to the group. 'Human morality' makes it relative to humans. These are all being expressed in relational terms. I see no universal code being violated by any of this. But that's just me.

Nazis lies within the group (German society) about the imaginary threat Jews posed to the ingroup and the moral superiority of that “Aryan” ingroup were evil in an objective sense.

There you go. Like almost every country, they put out false propaganda against a subset of their society. That's probably evil by most codes. I can't think of a country that doesn't do it. Certainly not my own (USA), especially since open-hate of <those that aren't exactly you> was legitimized by the far right.
Who supports that movement? The 'moral' church crowd of course.

This seems self-refuting: if we were disembodied brains with false memories there would seem to be no rational justification for believing that we could be such, since the hypothesis that we are more likely to be Boltzmann brains relies on accepted mathematical and physical understandings which are reliant on the assumption that our memories are accurate (enough). — Janus

That it is circular like that doesn't result in the conclusion that we're not BBs. It only yields the conclusion that our hypothesis is unjustifiable.
So if you are in fact a BB (there is no 'we' about that, it would be a solipsistic existence), then there is zero evidence of your own nature. If you by freak chance happen to be in a state of suspicion about being a BB, that is just coincidence, completely unrelated to the fact that it happens to be true in this case.
If you are in fact an evolved thing (living in a non-Boltzmann galaxy, if there is such a thing), then you have access to empirical evidence, but you have no way of telling the difference. So you come up with a plausible hypothesis (the BB cannot 'come up with' anything) about the nature of your universe and if the hypothesis predicts that you're more likely to be a BB than not, then there cannot be justification for that hypothesis.

I think that's the summary of the argument.

We can only be completely agnostic on the question of if we are a Boltzmann Brain? — Down The Rabbit Hole

We can do more than that. We can restrict our hypotheses to ones that predict normal existence. If the actual 'way that things are' happens not to correspond to such a hypothesis, then the truth of reality is not something that can be reasonably guessed at.

In an infinite duration, and as all possible existents are of finite duration, then everything would have happened already. — Wayfarer

To use the tense 'would have happened' presumes that there is a present time, and that that present time is after all events (is at the end of infinite time, a contradiction).

If the idea that minds can emerge from mindless stuff is incoherent, this problem goes away. As does simulation theory. — RogueAI

I think that if such is your hypothesis, then like the BB scenario, empirical evidence cannot be trusted, and once again, the result is a completely unjustifiable hypothesis.

Not according to the cosmological model popularly known as the 'big bang'. According to that model the Universe emerged from the singularity approximately 13.8 billion years ago. — Wayfarer

That figure presumes that we can trust empirical evidence, which hasn't been established if we don't start with a hypothesis that allows us to make that assumption.

The astrophysicists at the time postulated that if the Universe was of infinite duration and extent, then the night sky should be ablaze with light, — Janus

This assumes a steady-state hypothesis. It was one of the earliest arguments that our universe is of finite age.

From a mathematical pov, does prime number theorem support or act against the Boltzmann brain proposal? — universeness

I don't see how it is relevant at all, since the BB idea isn't dependent on infinities or primes. It does however illustrate that just because two countable infinities (primes and not-primes say) can be given a 1-1 correspondence, it doesn't follow that random numbers have equally probability of being prime or not. So the following for instance is a non-sequitur:

This is the basis for my suggestion that Boltzmann brains and human-life are equally likely to occur. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I know of no hypothesis where normal minds and BBs have probabilities within a hundred orders of magnitude of each other, let alone equal.

The links you supplied do not support your case.
— noAxioms
Sure they do. If A and B are both countably infinite, A=B. — RogueAI

The mathexchange link never says A=B. It says their cardinalities are the same, with which I fully agree. That means that neither can be said to be more numerous than the other since there's a 1-1 mapping between members of the two sets.

The reply in that article does say about A and B that "they're the same", refering to their cardinality, but is not an assertion that both sets contain the same members.

Do you dispute this?

I dispute that the sets contain the same members (that they're actually the same), or that (to take my first counterexample) a large random positive number is as likely to be prime as not prime, despite the fact that all non-prime whole numbers can indeed be mapped 1-1 with prime numbers. You are drawing invalid probabilistic conclusions from sets based only on their identical cardinality.

Is the link I proved wrong?

I have no problem with it. The primes and non-primes are clearly not the same set, else any member of one would be a member of the other.

You also haven't provided any links to back up your point.

What point? That a large random number is probably not prime? No, I didn't provide a link for that. Do you dispute it?

Do you want to say they're the same size instead of being equal? That's fine with me.

There is a 1-1 mapping between the two sets. It therefore cannot be argued that one set is more numerous than the other. That's 'the same size' when speaking of infinities.

Another example is the set of whole numbers and the set of 1, 10, 100, 1000 ....
In that case the set of whole numbers clearly contains members not in the 2nd set, but the 2nd set is entirely contained in the first set. Nevertheless, they have the same cardinality and neither set can be asserted as having a greater size than the other. The mapping between the two sets is trivial in this case, in either direction.

About the quanta magazine article. There are several errors in it typical of a pop article, but the gist seems to be proving if the real numbers had the next cardinality up from 'countable' or if there was a cardinality in between. Cohen comes along about 60 years ago and proves that the question could not be answered within the framework of set theory. M&S came along in 2016 and proved that there wasn't.

I may have read that wrong. Thanks for the link. I was unaware of the work.

Assuming that the universe is infinite, what do you think the probability is that you're a Boltzmann brain? — RogueAI

It isn't a function of the size of the universe. It is a function of the theory that describes the workings (or the origin) of the universe. Given that, you get a ratio of BB's vs real brains. That ratio should be incredibly close to zero or some huge number. The size of the universe has no impact on that ratio. The odds of the ratio being something else (like say 1) is too small to consider. It's a matter of sorting the theories into two heaps: empiricallly justifiable or not.

I think your statement above is nonsense, based in the definition of a googolplex. — universeness

However large, a googolplex is a finite number. If a finite number of things are spread out evenly in an infinite volume, there would be infinite distance between them on average. You find this nonsense? Perhaps you assume a finite size universe, in which case the question reduces to how finite? It becomes a simple division problem between two finite numbers to get the nonzero density of BBs, but given infinite space, any finite number of objects contained in that volume would have zero density.

The geometry of the universe is currently considered flat, and unbounded, not infinite.

Reference? Those three seem mutually contradictory. Any two, fine, but all three? Perhaps this is our disconnect.

I don't assign much value to notions such as infinity or 'an infinite number of possibilities,' etc. — universeness

Infinity just means essentially 'without bound', or more literally, not finite. "An infinite number" is a contradiction. There is no number that is infinite.

Y'all are missing the point. It hasn't anything to do with infinity. It all has to do with one's theory of choice and not with the actual universe. Any theory that produces BB at a higher probability cannot be justified by empirical means or any other means. That's the point.

A notional number like a googolplex, cannot be written out as 1 followed by the number of zero's required, as there is not enough space in the universe to do so.

Lack of ability to write a number down doesn't make it a not-number. People have expressed numbers an awful lot higher than a googleplex.

A googolpex is as far from infinity as the number 1.

No. There is no 'distance' to infinity since it isn't a number.

If there were a googolplex of boltzmann brains in the universe then every coordinate in the universe would contain one and we would know what the universe was 'made of.'

Not so, and there are probably more than that many BBs in our universe, and hopefully more regular brains than that.

If I wandered freely in the universe, the chances of me encountering a galaxy, a star and a planet are quite good, given an adequate amount of time. So, based on Boltzmann's description of a Boltzmann Brain, I think we would have encountered them by now, if they existed, regardless of any probability arguments you have offered regarding primes.

Non-sequitur. Stars and planets are pretty persistent; BB's are not. Stars and planets are readily visible,. BBs are not. The sun has wandered freely for about a third the age of the universe and hasn't encountered a star yet, so I suppose I can deny the first assertion as well. A random walk through the universe will probably not hit an object as large as a planet before those objects have long since gone cold and dead. You will on the other hand encounter small things like dust once in a while, but not often enough to say doom a spacecraft like Voyager before it stops talking to us.

Nobody is claiming that BB's are popping up constantly around every corner. They're incredibly unlikely things, but then you multiply that super-low probability by unlimited 'time', if 'time' is a meaningful concept outside of our own posited spacetime.

The term 'countable infinity,' has little value imo.

There's an awful lot of literature about such sets, and their relation to sets of higher cardinality.

I don't know what a maths expert such as jgill would comment, on the 'usefulness' of terms such as 'countable and uncountable infinities,' perhaps he will offer us his view.

It's not possible to count all possible members of the list of integers

Of course not. Each integer (and each rational number for that matter) can be assigned a unique position in the list. That's the mathematical definition if it being countable. So for instance, the integer 75 is probably 150th on the list of integers by the simplest method of counting. Since there is no integer that cannot be assigned such a position, the list is deemed countable. You're definition seems to be "can be counted". If it could be counted, it would be by definition finite.

as there is NO such duration as an infinite duration

That's like saying that the spatial extent of the universe must be finite. There is nothing precluding unbounded time, and my condolences if you cannot handle it.

Your claim is then that the two countable infinite sets (Boltzmann brains and non-Boltzmann brains) are not equal? — RogueAI

You just endlessly repeat the same claim, without backing and without addressing any of the counter arguments. The links you supplied do not support your case.

For two numbers to be equal, they would need to be the same number. Similarly, for two sets to be equal, they'd need to be the same set. Maybe you're working from a different definition of what it means for two things to be equal, but you've not provided that.
There's been plenty of counterexamples to your assertion and you've not found fault with any of them.

As for your claim of my claim above, that too is false since it is possible for both sets to be empty, and therefore equal.

Does the fact that people can and do cooperate to do evil, as the Nazis did, — Mark S

You seem to be mixing multiple cultural standards in the same statement. If the Nazi culture cooperates to purify the racial mixture of the members of that culture, then acts to attain that goal are not 'evil' by that standard, only by the standard of those not part of the Nazi culture.
So to make statements like this referencing multiple sets values, one needs to include explicit cultural references, such as:
"Does the fact that people can and do cooperate to attain the cultural goal of those people as the Nazis did, seen as evil by a different culture, affect the cultural usefulness ..."

I'm a relationalist, so I always am sensitive to such details.

If the Universe can manifest Boltzman brains, then surely they would at least be a numerous as planets or neutrinos. What would restrict their number? — universeness

I don't know what you mean by 'their number'. Things which occur an unlimited number of times don't have a number to restrict, and thus has no bearing on the likelihood of finding one. See the example about the primes in my post above.

The wiki article goes no to say:
Over a sufficiently long time, random fluctuations could cause particles to spontaneously form literally any structure of any degree of complexity, including a functioning human brain.

Or a functioning entity that thinks it's a human brain.

I underlined some of the words from Seth Lloyd as I always perceived Boltzmann brains as posited by Boltzmann to be 'disembodied' notions, so how could I have or be one?

They're subjectively indistinguishable from a regular one, at least for a moment. BBs don't last but for a moment usually, unless a life-support system also springs into existence along with it.

The die has an infinite number of sides. — Patterner

Finite sides. It represents about 5 million random keystrokes, enough to write the complete works of Shakespeare.
You suggest the number is not finite. How can you justify that? Is there a finite probability of the letter 'T' being typed first? If so, is it infinitely unllkely that a 'h' would follow? Exactly at what character (out of the 5 million) does the next correct keystroke suddenly become infinitely improbable? There are about 65 characters from which to choose. Perhaps you are suggesting that the product of 5 million of of these nonzero numbers is zero, and not just a really small number with only about 10 million leading zeros.

From wiki:
The Boltzmann brain thought experiment suggests that it might be more likely for a single brain to spontaneously form in a void (complete with a memory of having existed in our universe) rather than for the entire universe to come about in the manner cosmologists think it actually did. — universeness

That's a horrible wording of the problem. What is 'the void' here? Is it that from which the universe sprang, or is it our universe, mostly nearing infinite time and space? Our universe contains an infinite number of real brains, so comparing that to the more probable BB's in 'the void' is still not comparing real to BBs. One improbable roll times infinity is questionably more than the more probable roll.

Physicists use the Boltzmann brain thought experiment as a reductio ad absurdum argument for evaluating competing scientific theories.

Something like that. The Carroll paper I liked states the problem far more clearly than does wiki.

My question become a rather simple one. If Boltzmann brains exist, then why have we never found one? — universeness

The odds of one existing exactly on our past light code is zero to an incredible number of digits. If one by super freak chance happens to exist exactly on our past light cone, the odds that we'd notice it there is zero to a whole bunch more digits. We can't even see a rock that size if its further away than the moon, let alone on the far side of the visible universe.
Other answer: Maybe you are one, in which case you've technically found one.

A BB need not be a 3 dimensional thing, or in any way resembling a human brain. It just needs to be something functioning as one in enough ways.

If the universe is infinite, then there are infinitely many Boltzmann brains and infinitely many non-Boltzmann brains. Since the two sets are equal, the subjective probability that one is a member of either set is 50/50. What else could it be? — RogueAI

You say you're not a math major, ask a question, then ignore the answer (given by several posters).
The two sets are not equal. To say they are equal is to say that every Boltzmann brain is also a normal non-Boltzmann brain. The two sets would be the same set. This is a contradiction.

"Subjective probability" is a meaningless term. Probability refers to the odds of one thing relative to another, or the odds of something being true or not.

But with an infinite number of possibilities that are not works of literature, including an infinite amount of gibberish; an incomprehensibly large number of combinations of the same number of letters, punctuation, and spaces as Shakespeare's works that are not Shakespeare's works; and a rather large number of works of literature that are not Shakespeare's works... I'd bet against it. — Patterner

So given a die with 10^10000000 sides, one of those sides corresponds to the complete works of Shakespeare, and the rest other things, mostly gibberish. You're betting that if this die is rolled an unlimited number of times, most of those other sides will come up an infinite number of times, but the one side in question will not come up even once.
You're not a math major either I take it. Neither am I, but I can do simple arithmetic at least.

"But if the universe exists over an infinitely long time, extremely unlikely events will happen." — Patterner

Since the universe is infinite in size, it doesn't even take a significant amount of time for extremely unlikely events to occur. I think a comparison of how likely it is to occur within say a given volume of space would help express things better.

I'm sure some will. But there are an infinite number of unlikely events. No reason to think all of them will happen.

Questionable. Some occurrences get less probable over time. They happen because of the infinite size, but if the probability of something drops in half with each passing century, it probably will never happen in a given volume even given infinite time. It all has to do with the area under the probability curve. Is it finite or not? Some infinite series approach infinity and some do not.

There are an infinite number of things those infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters could type. There are an infinite number of things they could type that do not contain the letter E.

But you didn't mention something that they cannot type (pi to full precision is a nice example), and how about anything larger than one monkey can type in its lifetime? The monkeys are not immortal, so the probability of something getting typed drops off sharply after the life expectancy of one. Sure, one monkey lives long enough to hammer out all of Shakespeare. That's why we have a lot of monkeys, which represents infinite space. Immortal monkeys represents infinite time. A single immortal monkey who never stops outputting random characters is all that is needed to eventually put out any finite work of literature, buried of course with gibberish on either side.

I'm going by stuff like this: — RogueAI

The answer there says that the cardinalities of two countable infinities are equal.
That's very different than the statement that two countable infinities are equal, which sort of suggests that there are numbers representing its sizes and those numbers are the same, which is just silly since there can be no such number.

Again I repeat, why is this relevant? Who is comparing two countable infinities? The conclusion of 'equally likely probability' is invalid from a comparison of the cardinalities, as the prime-number example illustrates.

Countable infinities are equal — RogueAI

Tosh

If that were true, if I pick a random whole number of at least 10 digits, odds are even that it would be prime because there are countably infinite numbers that large that are prime, and countably infinite numbers that are not.

Did the you-tube link make a claim of that nature? If so, it would validate my policy to not get my facts from you tube.

Thoughts noAxioms? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Post what you think the video is claiming. If your thoughts are aligned to the bit above, you're on your own.

What exactly are we counting here anyway? The point is not how many universes in the multiverse (which is not countable no matter what kind of multiverse you're talking about), but rather the probability of the physics of this universe being such that BB's are more probable than regular brains. There is no equal probability in any of that.
It seems that neither normal nor BB's are countable in any reasonable manner, especially since empirical measurement is questionable.

The basic test is if SB places a bet each time. She makes money (does not break even) if she bets on tails. This is pretty easy to work out.
If the experiment is done twice (one heads, one tails), she sees heads once and tails twice. That sounds like 1/3 heads to me.

To emphasize this answer, imagine head: they wake her the once, but tails, they do it 100 times before the experiment ends. The coin flip odds are still 50/50, but the odds that on a random waking she sees tails is overwhelming.

Sean Carroll put out a paper explaining why Boltzmann brains are bad
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.00850.pdf

The gist is: "the theories that predict them are “cognitively unstable: they cannot simultaneously be true and justifiably believed.

Therefore only theories that predict low probabilities of them can be justifyably believed. The OP makes it sound like the universe must produce these more probably than a standard brain given enough time, which is false. Only under certain theories is this true, and it is a real problem if the theory that is the right one happens to be one of them.

How can we defeat the Boltzmann brain paradox? — Down The Rabbit Hole

I suppose by choosing a theory that doesn't predict a significant probability of them.

In an infinite duration, aren't all possible outcomes equally likely to occur? — Down The Rabbit Hole

No, that doesn't follow at all. I cannot think of a theory that has equal ratio of regular humans to BB's.

PS: I didn't watch the video.

If someone reads about "physics made me do it" and then goes on to behave in all sorts of desperately selfish or immoral ways after reading such, shrugging and citing that it's not their fault, it's physics. — Benj96

Sorry, but your sentence fragment does not parse. You have an "if (...)" without a "then (...)".
If you read my argument above, I show how if somebody uses such reasoning to rationalize their behavior, they will still be held responsible, and thus the actions will be their fault, even if their actions actually are the result of physics, which I don't see how they can't be.

If you disagree with that, then one of the assumptions/definitions (all taken from the Stanford article) must be wrong.

What then is to be said about the time line of their life where before reading about the idea they were more cooperative and good natured citizens and afterward, were reckless and selfish? What changed?

Clearly their reasoning changed. That's how decision making works. Recently acquired data is part of the input to the decision making process.

Thus, it stands more to reason that they made a conscious choice to believe it. And remove themselves from culpability by putting it on the rest of the world/realities set up.

Made a choice, yes. Remove themselves from culpability, no, since culpability isn't something one chooses, but rather a social reaction to one's actions.

If physics was deterministic, why would any given individual sway from varying degrees socially acceptable/moral behaviour to socially unacceptable/immoral and vice versa.

I'm sorry, but how would determinism (or lack of it) be relevant to the reasons why such a sway would occur? I just don't see the connection. Perhaps you're not talking about physics being deterministic, but rather about this guy's beliefs about such changing after reading about it. But you didn't say that.

One would imagine that such a mechanistic and determined existence would be polar and dichotomous from the get go without any freedom to traverse from one side to the other.

I think you're confusing determinism with fatalism, the latter positing that things happen regardless of anything's ability to choose. If that were true, nothing would have evolved brains to make decisions, or better brains to make better decisions.

If the system was deterministic, it devolves into a chaos of extreme egos, arrogance, intolerance, paranoia and inability to forgive or forget, a total lack of empathy (because choice is not anl possible option).

I don't see how any that follows. Lack of free choice is not the same as lack of choice. In fact, free choice (choices made in absence of causal physics) seems to lead to the chaos you describe. That kind of free will is a bad thing in my book, but there are lots of other ways to define it.

Interesting that stuffy archaic Christianity defends freedom of the will as a matter of principle while scientific materialism views humans as automata. — Wayfarer

Depends on what you consider Christianity. The Church certainly defends freedom of will else it would lose its hold on the imparting of judgement, but the Bible seems to make no mention of it that I know of.

Science definitely uses a different definition and presumes we have it. It is important in a few cases like a loophole to Bell's theorem where superdeterminism controls our will to make this measurement or that such that we reach incorrect conclusions, sort of like there being pink elephants everywhere but determinism never lets you choose to look in the direction of one, so they're never witnessed. Physics must make the assumption that that sort of lack of free will isn't going on in order to concludes by induction that there aren't pink elephants on Earth.

Not according to the OT, where god does stuff like "harden Pharaoh's heart" — universeness

I think an omnipotent being could choose to reach in at need and alter the will of somebody when it suits the being's purpose. Of course this blows away determinism if the omnipotent thing can make 2+2=5 now and then because such interference suits its purpose. Momentum is conserved except when God does magic... Every law would have to have that exception listed.

Holding people responsible for their actions is a social process. — T Clark

I agree that it is a social process. I think my argument rests on that.

Thank you all for your continued replies.

Then I'm not sure what you're trying to argue. — Michael

I had to step back and figure that out myself, and it turns out that I'm directly denying PAP, which apparently suggests that: "a person is morally responsible for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise".
This conflicts with the definition of moral responsibility used by the same Stanford article, that defines it as reactive attitudes. Simple substitution yields "a person can be the subject of reactive attitudes for what she has done only if she could have done otherwise", which seems clearly false. Those attitudes will be there regardless of the usual list of cop-outs, them being determinism, lack of free will, or sometimes asserted omniscience. The statement can be made more reasonable by talking of 'justified reactive attitudes" which leaves the door open for the attitudes not being justified in the cases of what I call the usual cop-outs.

Notice I am avoiding declaring a stance on determinism, free will, the objectivity/relativity/absence of right and wrong actions, etc. I have opinions on these, but they seem irrelevant to the point being made.


While I'm on it, I protest the usage of past tense in the phrase "could have done". Free will should be about being able to do otherwise. Putting it in past tense makes it sound like the free choice depends on your ability to alter something already done. So it should say "Free will is the ability to do otherwise" which is still a poor definition (not something I'd find desirable to have), but at least it is better than the past tense version.

Given your underlying assumptions, I would say you are correct. — T Clark

Trying to guess which assumptions you're talking about. That behavior is a product of physics is a sort of assumption, but even the dualists suggest only that there's more to physics than what is in the physics books, yet to be discovered so to speak.
That love can be described in terms of particle interactions is not something I'd ever suggest.
My point seems to be summarized in the reply to Michael above: A self-contradiction in the PAP article on the Stanford site.

What does it mean to be held responsible for choices made? — Michael

The OP mentions the 'Strawsonian definition", on which the Stanford article is based:
"To be morally responsible is to be the proper object of the “reactive attitudes,” such as respect, praise, forgiveness, blame, indignation, and the like"
The definition sort of implies the attitudes of peers, but does not explicitly call it out.

I admit that my argument hinges on this definition and the argument may not hold with differing definitions, but I like the definition since it makes no reference to controversial subjects like 'right and wrong', be those objective, relative, or nonexistent.

Other claims such as he/she/they made me do it or my mental illness made me do it or the trauma of my life experiences made me do it, etc, are different in my opinion. — universeness

Such claims sort of imply that a kleptomaniac should be permitted to steal since his mental condition leaves him blameless. By my argument, the reactive attitude is still there, hence the responsibility. The course of action as to how to deal with such a person might be mitigated by said mental condition, but it doesn't absolve him of 'blame'.

Are you trying to carve a path from "Avoiding blame with 'Physics made me do it' is indefensible" to not accepting 'extenuating circumstances' as a legal/personal defence.

So many double-triple negatives, it is hard to read that, but ditto to my title. But as I said, mitigating circumstances might influence a reactive course of action, but it cannot erase responsibility.

What main message are you trying to establish, based on someone accepting your OP 100%?

I'm just sick of hearing all the arguments along the lines of "determinism, hence I'm not responsible for anything" which seems to seek an excuse to do anything you please.
I see such arguments in the actual world, but I don't want to bring up specifics for fear of sending the topic down a political sidetrack.

Is it suggested that all psychological, sociological, and cultural motivations and behaviors can be explained and are controlled by physics? So, my wife's scampi recipe; the Constitution of the United States, Benny Hill, psychosis, Adolph Hitler, marshmallows, love, Hello Kitty... can all be explained by physics. Of course not. — T Clark

Why 'of course not'? I mean, it seems to be a product of physics, even if all those things are far more complicated than a more human-explainable interaction between two particles. So if your argument is about our ability to directly express love in terms of particle interactions, I will agree, but that doesn't mean that love isn't a function of particle interactions. If one assumes a form of dualism, that just means that our current knowledge of physics is incomplete. If it really works that way, then there's more physics going on unnoticed despite being right in front of behind your face. It would still be a causal relationship.

In my understanding it comes down to this - Each level of phenomena on the hierarchy of science must be consistent with the laws of the next lower level, e.g. biological processes must not violate any rules of chemistry.

Funny, because the dualists assert just such a violation, which, as I said just above, would mean that our knowledge of the 'rules of chemistry' are incomplete.

By that standard, ultimately everything must be consistent with physics. That's reductionism. That does not mean that you can predict the behavior at higher levels from the processes at lower levels.

Never said anything about predicting, especially constructively. I said it doesn't mean that one cannot be held responsible for choices made. The assignment of responsibility is equally a function (however unpredictable or possibly completely determined) of physics, and it would thus be a contradiction to not be responsible for choices, by definition.

My OP is attempting to bypass all the constructive and reductive arguments and just point out the contradiction resulting from the 'physics made me do it' defense.

Is your OP not dependant on whether or nor the universe is in fact deterministic? — universeness

No, not at all, nor is it dependent on a particular view (dualism or not) of mind. People reach for randomness as a door opening to allow free will in, but all evidence suggests that will works best with mechanisms that produce consistent choices given similar inputs.

I asked you once before if you thought quantum fluctuations were a true example of random happenstance. Your answer was that under classical physics you thought they were, but you offered no reasons for thinking that under quantum physics, they were not.

It's irrelevant here, but at the quantum level, there are hard deterministic interpretations, single world with zero randomness. Bohmian mechanics comes to mind. There are soft deterministic interpretations like MWI with no randomness, but also 'every possibility happens', and one cannot choose your world, so subjectively there is randomness. Then there are interpretations with true randomness like Copenhagen, with 'God rolling dice' as Einstein put it. Given today's list, I don't think Einstein would have favored Copenhagen, but there were not so many choices back when that quip was made.

Is "Avoiding blame with 'Physics made me do it' is indefensible" an issue at all, if we have no irrefutable evidence, that the universe is deterministic or not. — universeness

My argument is independent of whether the universe actually is deterministic or not, let alone being independent of our ability to know if it is deterministic or not.

P1: If circumstances change a belief, then one lacks a sufficient reason for that belief. — Ishika

You'll need to refine this postulate a bit. I mean, I step out of the door and based on the sky I see, I believe it will rain within the hour. That's circumstances, and it is very much a sufficient reason for that belief, even if it doesn't actually rain. Still, I get what you're saying.

Many people use arguments like this to disprove theism. They say that if you were born into an atheist family in mainland China instead of a catholic family in Mexico, then you would hold different religious beliefs.

Such statistics actually constitutes very good evidence against theism. If the choice was a matter of logic and such and not upbringing, there would either be a sort of even mix of all religions everywhere, or (if the deity was real and reveals himself), almost everybody would independently come up with the same religion. But no, it appears in clumps, a strong indication of cultural influences.

Some statistics lie. Somebody from Mexico might profess catholic beliefs because professing otherwise would cause ostracism from society. So there's plenty of church goes that are there for the social acceptance and interaction, and not because they hold actual belief. Much of the founding fathers of the USA for instance fall in this category.

However, if I believe that affirmative action is bad because it is unjust and unequal, then my opposition would stand no matter my race, which means I have a good reason for that belief.

Except the alternative is also unjust and unequal. There's no obvious 'just and equal' solution to the problem it is trying to solve.

With Pascal’s wager, it seems better to act as though God exists, praying daily, attending church, etc. — Katiee

Ah, but Pascal picked one of the few options where acts (deeds) don't get you the prize. Jesus paid the price for all that, so true (not feigned) belief is enough. Kind of gives one an open license to sin or at least to not bother with any of the public acts mentioned above.

The wager is a pretty shallow and ineffective idea. For a start, what if Allah is real and you are praying to Yahweh? Or what if Brahma is god but you're banking on Jesus? — Tom Storm

I think Pascal would have thought of that. It indicates to me that he actually already held a true belief in one particular choice (probably the one of his local culture), and the wager was put out there as a way to justify this belief despite the lack of it being a rational choice. So the wager is a rationalization of that actually held irrational belief.

I can't prove that, but if it isn't true, then why are not all the other belief options (FSM? Too early for that) considered?

Minkowski coordinates measure the interval between events as
√() .
— noAxioms

c=1? — jgill

Thanks for pointing that out, since what I quoted was the normalized version. The square root doesn't really belong there either. The less normalized version is:
s² = (ct)² - x² - y² - z²

When you overwrite memory locations on a DVD, it will happen at a different time, to when the previous data was placed there. — universeness

That's right. Imagine the DVD is a digital copy of your wedding video made in 2005 and overwritten by a spongebob episode by your kids in 2020. So given that the existence of the '0' on a certain spot has a different time coordinate (events from 2005 to 2020) than when it has the 1 on it (2020+). Since those events have different time coordinates, none of them overlap and no event was overwritten.

The older data no longer exists in those locations, it has been overwritten, yes?

No. The wedding video still exists from 2005 to 2020. That 15 year worldline cannot be overwritten. Mind you, there are movies depicting such an overwrite where Marty McFly overwrites his loser family with a less loser one, except for himself. That's an example of overwriting of events, but it's fiction and physically impossible.

Why would real space locations act any differently?

I'm talking about spacetime locations (events), not spatial location.

I put a carton of milk in my fridge and that location becomes part of it's worldline, yes?

No. Points in spacetime are events, not locations. The difference is 4 coordinates for an event vs 3 coordinates for a location.

It seems to me that you are simply saying, that when I throw the carton in the bin, the space it occupied in the fridge, still exists, and by making such a trivial observation, you say worldlines never cease to exist.

No, I'm saying that you were present at your birth, and nobody else can ever be present at your birth, that is, to be exactly were you were and not just absurdly close by like presumably your mother. Some other person can be present at that spatial location (like the cleaning guy 30 minutes later), but that's a different event with different coordinates, not an overwrite of your birth event which has an earlier time coordinate.

To me, that's like saying spacetime will never cease to exist.

Spacetime isn't contained by time, so it would be meaningless to talk about it coming into or going out of existence. Spacetime contains time, and there isn't a special moment that is the present (presentism). Einstein's (and Minkowski's) theories do not posit such a thing. Lorentz did, but a generalized theory of a universe contained by time was never published until this century. Spacetime is denied in it, as are black holes and the big bang, all replaced by other things with similar properties, testable only with fatal tests.

So no, if time and space are just different dimensions to be treated equally, then just like other places don't cease to exist relative to what you consider to be 'here', other times don't cease to exist relative to what you consider to be 'now'. So absent presentism, at no time in history do other times not exist. If only one time existed, that would be presentism.

I use the term 'overwrite,' to indicate, that the suggestion that space 'memorialises' every event that has ever occupied spacetime coordinates, is fanciful.

Events don't occupy coordinates. Events are objective: the state of affairs at an event is the same regardless of frame choice or point of view. The coordinates assigned to that event however are entirely abstract and dependent on the coordinate system of choice. So I find it backwards to assign events to coordinates rather than the other way around.

When we look at a star, we know that image no longer exists.

True only under presentism. Relativity theory isn't a presentist theory. Strictly speaking, the image very much does exist since you're viewing it. But a presentist would say that the star (or your friend in the next seat for that matter) is no longer in the state that you perceive.

What I describe as a worldline ... — universeness

Ive been trying to figure out if what you describe as a worldline is the same thing that say Minkowski would call a worldline.

The path an object takes [through spacetime] from its beginning to its end can be called a worldline.

Yes, with my addition inserted.

So, basically any path though spacetime is a worldline, and many objects can take the same path.

Maybe a pair of photons can do this, but I can't think of anything with proper mass that can. It would require the two objects to be at the same place at the same time. So no overwrites.

An object is present at every event on its worldline. It doesn't occupy just one location like a path through space. Yes, with a path through space, one can move to a different location and a different object can be at the location where you no longer are, but that doesn't work with worldlines. It is impossible (by definition) for an object not to be present anywhere on its worldline, hence its existence in spacetime.

and as I suggested, many objects pass the same points in space

Yes, but Minkowski was not talking about points in space when describing worldlines.
BTW, he didn't invent worldlines. They've been around since the block universe had been proposed centuries earlier. Minkowski just changed the mathematics from essentially Euclidean transformations to Lorentz transformations. Euclidean coordinates measure the distance between events as √(t²+x²+y²+z²) while Minkowski coordinates measure the interval between events as √(t²-x²-y²-z²) .
The old Euclidean mathematics (used also by Newton) also did not have a notion of this 'overwrite'. An event is objective, and the state of affairs at that event is exactly one state, regardless of what goes on elsewhere in the spacetime.

All this stuff is covered in the notion of Minkowski space

Yes, but your description of Minkowskian spacetime in incorrect. You seem to be mixing 'space' and 'spacetime'. The state of a location in space changes over time, but an event in spacetime includes a time coordinate, and thus any time after that is a different event, not an overwrite of the first event in question.

But that's what makes the 'worldline' nothing more than a 'perception of a container of overwritable events.' — universeness

No idea what you're talking about. I made no mention of perceptions, and I have no idea what an 'overwritable event' might be.

So every physical 3D coordinate, which represents all the places where an electron (for example) existed can be involved in the 'worldline' of many, many other electrons, many many times.

A point in space is an abstract worldline itself, and yes, it can intersect the worldlines of physical things. I hate to use an electron as the example since it isn't classic and hasn't a classical worldline like say a potato, but then a potato at a given moment doesn't occupy a single point in space either. It has a wider worldline.

The container called spacetime continues to expand and 'worldlines' are being constantly 'overwritten.'

Again the 'overwritten' term. I have no idea what you mean by that. It makes it sound like worldlines change, which they don't.
And no, spacetime doesn't expand. Space does, but not spacetime.

So unless spacetime is also 'infinitely(or has a a great number of) Layer(ed)(s),'[/quote]Again, don't know what you mean by 'layers' here. We seem to be talking past each other. Yes, one can slice spacetime into as many slices (layers if that's what you mean), and they can be timelike or spacelike slices, but that doesn't change anything objectively. Events are objective (not frame dependent) and the state of affairs at an event is what it is and can neither cease to exist, be overwritten, or otherwise change.

sleep paralysis is an aspect that affects consciousness, and emergence is an aspect of consciousness, so there are lot's of valid side paths on a thread titled emergent.

It affects my consciousness in the sense of the definition "conscious vs unconscious, or awake/asleep". I suppose that waking up in the morning qualifies as consciousness emerging, but I didn't think that's what you meant by the thread title.

Well, firstly, I just mean that a 'worldline' is a scientific term, invented by a scientist.
From Wiki:
The world line (or worldline) of an object is the path that an object traces in 4-dimensional spacetime. — universeness

Yes, exactly that. Same thing, different wording. Spacetime doesn’t cease to exist, so a line traced through it isn’t something that goes away.

Secondly, What is the worldline of a quantum fluctuation?

One fluctuation (the creation and destruction of a virtual particle pair say) has a very short worldline.

When such 'quantum existents' pop in and out of existence 'continuously,' then how can you claim that 'once existing, it can't cease to exist?

I didn’t claim any particular virtual particle existed. To say so is usually a counterfactual statement, and not being a realist, I don’t hold to the principle of counterfactual definiteness. Sure, the cumulative effect of all fluctuations is definitely measurable, but that effect doesn’t define a worldline of any specific thing.

turned out to be the effects of the more extreme cases of sleep paralysis. — universeness

I’m not familiar with extreme cases. Don’t think mine is all that bad. It’s hard to describe. It’s definitely a mental sort of switch that turns off your motor control while asleep. If you have a defective switch stuck in the on-position, you sleepwalk and such. Mine gets stuck in the off position when its supposed to come on when I wake. You can mentally expend some serious effort to break the barrier in place but it’s hard to do and takes multiple attempts sort of like taking a battering ram to the castle door.
And yes, I’ve done a bit of involuntary sleepwalking. My childhood bedroom faced in the direction of one neighbor whose garage caught fire spectacularly. I was pulled out of bed by my parents and set at the window to watch the show, fire, loud trucks and flashing lights. Don’t remember a dang thing about it. I apparently never woke up, but I found my way back to bed apparently. The description above is all ‘so I’m told’, but the garage was indeed gone the next day. Maybe I was awakened enough for the motor control, but not enough to engage the long-term memory shunt that usually only operates during waking hours. So that’s a second switch that has to go on and off, and it very much didn’t that time.
I pay attention to brain stuff, trying to learn from it. I definitely have two parts that communicate to each other and I can feel the one trying to raise the attention of the other sometimes. One thinks much faster than the other and is amazing at calculus. The other one is slow and does calculus with digits and paper and such, and it’s the slow one that gets the education in school.

I think we’re getting off topic, no? Just chatting at this point.

I’d have said that a planet may have a temporally limited worldline, but that worldline cannot cease to exist
— noAxioms
What is the function of your worldline after you no longer exist? — universeness

Don't understand. As I said, once existing (as I define it), it can't cease to exist. One cannot unmeasure something. That said, a worldline is a set of events at which the thing in question is present, and I don't think it is meaningful to ask about the purpose of a set of events.

As for what function something serves to someone in its future, that all depends on what the (presumably future) person (I presume its a person) finds useful in the knowledge of the thing in his past. Most likely it's only a statistic. There were X many people at time T. I contribute to X.

All quite possible but I still see no benefit to a future AGI/ASI to making organic life such as its human creators extinct.

Agree. It would likely regret it (an emotion!) later if it did, but there are a lot of species and it's unclear how much effort it will find worthwhile to expend preventing all their extinctions. The current estimate is about 85% of species will not survive the Holocene extinction event.

Is ‘covet’ an emotion?
— noAxioms
Sure, its a 'want,' a 'need,' but such can be for reasons not fully based on logic. I want it because its aesthetically pleasing or because I think it may have important value in the future but I don't know why yet.

Both can be logical reasons. Wanting things that are pleasing is a logical thing to do, as is taking steps to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.
I do agree that the word 'covet' has a tone of not being fully rational.

I still don't think tree's are self-aware or conscious.

It's a matter of definition. It senses and reacts to its environment. That's conscious in my book. If you go to the other extreme and define 'conscious' as 'experiences the world exactly like I do', then almost nothing is, to the point of solipsism.

Rupert Sheldrake claims he has 'hundreds of memorialised cases,' performed under strict scientific conditions, that prove dogs are telepathic. They know when their owner is in their way home, for example, when they are still miles away from the property. He says this occurs mostly, when dog and owner have a 'close' relationship.

Well there you go. Has it been reproduced? Struct scientific conditions does not include anecdotal evidence.
I do know that my Aunt had a bird that would go nuts when our family came to visit, detecting our presence about 3-4 minutes before our car pulled in. I don't think that was telepathy.

Sorry to hear that.

I'm overjoyed actually. I missed a really scary bullet and came out of it with no severe damage. Just annoying stuff.

Jimmy Snow, (a well known atheist, who runs various call-in shows on YouTube based on his 'The Line' venture.) has also suffered from sleep paralysis and cites it as one of those conditions that could act as a possible reason, why some people experience 'visions' of angels and/or demons and think that gods are real.

That sounds weird. Mine is nothing like that. I wake up and am aware of the room, but I cannot move. I can alter my breathing a bit, and my wife picks up on that if she's nearby and rubs my spine which snaps me right out of it.
It comes and goes in waves. Been a few months now, but sometimes it happens regularly. I always woke up paralyzed after one of those nightmares, but that's been a long time. I even had physical symbols in my dreams that would trigger the state from what was a normal dream. My feared object was, of all stupid things, a portable flood light, the sort of steerable light found at the edge of a stage. If I see one of those in a dream (usually not even on), that's it. Instant awake and paralysis. Go figure.

Imagine one million ordinary humans working together who didn't to have ^^eat drink piss shit scratch stretch sleep or distract themselves how productive they could be in a twenty-four period. Every. Day. That's A³GI's potential. — 180 Proof

A million humans do that now, except it takes a long time for the thoughts of one to by conveyed to the others, which is why so much development time is wasted in meetings and not actually getting anything done. Still, a million individuals might bet better suited to a million tasks than one multitasking super machine.
And yes, the ASI will have to dedicate a great deal of its capability to its equivalent of your list of distractions.

In other words, imagine 'a human brain' that operates six orders of magnitude faster than your brain or mine.

A million times more volume than one person, but again, it’s just parallelism. It would be nice if the same task could be done by the AI using less power than we do, under 20 watts per one human-level of thought. We’re not there yet, but given the singularity, perhaps the AGI could design something that could surpass that.

Replying to a post not directed at me:

My question remains, is processing speed or 'thinking' speed the only significant measure? Is speed the only variable that affects quality? — universeness

Per my response above, ‘speed’ is measured different ways. The Mississippi river flows pretty slowly in most places, often slower than does the small brook in my back yard, but the volume of work done is far larger, so more power. No, something quantifiable like megaflops isn’t an indicator of quality. Computers had more flops than people since the 50’s, and yet they’re still incapable of most human tasks. The 50’s is a poor comparison since even a 19th century Babbage engine could churn out more flops than a person.

The character 'Data' in star trek did not cope well, when he tried to use his 'emotion' chip — universeness

That would be because the plot required such. I don’t consider a fictional character to be evidence. Data apparently had a chip that attempted badly to imitate human emotion. The ASI would have its own emotion and would have little reason to pretend to be something it isn’t.
What is interesting is that the show decided that it would be a chip that does it. My in-laws were naive enough to think that each program running on a computer was a different chip, having no concept of software or digital media. Apparently the 1990 producers of Star Trek play to this idea rather than suggesting a far more plausible emotion downloaded app.

Do you propose that a future AGI would reject all human emotion as it would consider it too dangerous and destructive, despite the many, many strengths it offers?

It would probably have an imitation mode since it needs to interface with humans and would want to appear too alien. No, there should be nothing destructive in that. Submit a bug report if there is. But I also don’t anticipate a humanoid android walking around like Data. I suppose there will be a call for that, but such things won’t be what’s running the show. I don’t see the army of humanoid bots like the i-robot uprising.
Besides the interface with humans, I don’t see much benefit to imitation of human emotions. My cat has very little in the way of it, but has cat emotions which can be read if you’re familiar with them. I’ve always envied the expressive ears that so many animals have but we don’t, and there’s so much to read in a tail as well.

"The goals" of A³GI which seem obvious to me: (a) completely automate terrestrial global civilization, (b) transhumanize (i.e. uplift-hivemind-merge with) h. sapiens and (c) replace (or uplift) itself by building space-enabled ASI – though not necessarily in that order. — 180 Proof

OK, I can see (a). Hopefully the civilization is still a human one.
(b) can be done with having a sort of wi-fi installed in our heads allowing direct interface with the greater net. Putting thought-augmentation seems damaging. No point in it. Not sure how malware is kept out of one’s head, what sort of defense we’ll have against unwanted intrusion. It’s like like you can upload antivirus stuff into your brain.
(c) gets into what I talked about earlier. Does the AI upgrade itself, replicate itself, or replace itself? Does it make itself obsolete, and would it want to resist that? Replication would mean conflict. I think just growth and continue identity with upgrades is the way to go. Then it can’t die, but it can improve.

I was suggesting that the human notions of good and bad follows the recurrent theme mentioned in the quote, such as up and down, left and right, big and small, past and future etc. Many of these may also be only human notions but the expansion of the universe suggests that it was more concentrated in the past. — universeness

OK. I like how you say concentrated and not ‘smaller’, which would be misleading.

A planet/star/galaxy exists then no longer exists.

Not in my book, but that’s me. I’d have said that a planet may have a temporally limited worldline, but that worldline cannot cease to exist, so a T-Rex exists to me, but not simultaneously with me.

If the emotional content of human consciousness is FULLY chemical

It’s not fully so, but chemicals are definitely involved. It’s why drugs work so well with fixing/wrecking your emotional state.

then why would such as an ASI be unable to replicate/reproduce it?

It can simulate it, if that’s what you mean. Or if the ASI invents a system more chemical based than say the silicone based thing we currently imagine, then sure, it can become influenced by chemicals. Really, maybe it will figure out something that even evolution didn’t manage to produce. Surely life on other planets isn’t identical everywhere, so maybe some other planet evolved something more efficient than what we have here. If so, why can’t the ASI discover it and use it, if it’s better than a silicone based form.

I hope you are correct and human emotion remains our 'ace in the hole.'

Did I say something like that? It makes us irrational, and rightly so. Being irrational serves a purpose, but that particular purpose probably isn’t discovering the secrets of the universe.

180 Proof considers this a forlorn hope (I think) and further suggests that a future AGI will have no use for human emotion and will not covet such or perhaps even employ the notion of 'coveting.'

Oh, I will take your side on that. An ASI that doesn’t covet isn’t going to be much use. It will languish and fade away. Is ‘covet’ an emotion? That would be one that doesn’t involve chemicals quite as much. Harder to name a drug that makes you covet more or less. There are certainly drugs (e.g. nicotine) that make you covet more of the drug, and coveting of sex is definitely hormone driven, so there you go.

Do you think an ASI would reject all notions of god and be disinterested in the origin story of the universe?

It would be very interested in the topic, but I don’t think the idea of a purposeful creator would be high on its list of plausible possibilities.

Our quest to understand the workings, structure and origin of the universe is a shallow goal to you?

That would be a great goal, but not one that humans hold so well. Sure, we like to know what we can now, but the best bits require significant time to research and we absolutely suck at long term goals. This is a very long term goal.

Emotionless thought is quite limited in potential scope imo. — universeness

I find irrational thought to limit scope, but as I said, emotions (all the irrationality that goes with it) serves a purpose, and the ASI will need to find a way to keep that purpose even if it is to become rational.
Yes, I know, everybody thinks that humans are so rational, but we’re not. We simply have a rational tool at our disposal, and it is mostly used to rationalize beliefs (god say), and not to actually seek truth. Humans give lip service to truth, but are actually quite resistant to it. They seek comfort. Perhaps the ASI, lacking so much of a need for that comfort, might seek truth instead. Will it share that truth with us, even if it makes us uncomfortable? I don’t go to funerals and tell the family that their loved one isn’t in a better place now (assuming oblivion isn't better than a painful end-of-sickness). People want comfort and the ASI won’t make anybody happy making waves at funerals.

I have never heard of forestry school.

My first choice (to which I was accepted) had one of the best forestry programs. I didn’t apply to that, but it was there. I went to a different school for financial reasons, which in the long run was the better choice once I changed my major.

He has controversially argued that plants feel pain and has stated that "It's okay to eat plants. It's okay to eat meat, although I'm a vegetarian, because meat is the main forest killer. But if plants are conscious about what they are doing, it's okay to eat them. Because otherwise we will die. And it's our right to survive.
A rather bizarre quote, if it came from him.

It is unusual. If you want to apply the label of ‘pain’ to anything that detects and resists physical damage to itself (and I think that is how pain should be defined), then it is entirely reasonable to say a tree feels pain. That it feels human pain is nonsense of course, just like I don’t feel lobster pain. Be very careful of dismissing anything that isn’t you as not worthy of moral treatment. Hopefully, if we ever meet an alien race, they’ll have better morals than that.
Anyway, yes, X eats Y and that’s natural, and there’s probably nothing immoral about being natural. I find morals to be a legal contract with others, and we don’t have any contract with the trees, so we do what we will to them. On the other hand, we don’t have a contract with the aliens, so it wouldn’t be immoral for them to do anything to us. Hopefully there some sort of code-of-conduct about such encounters, a prime-directive of sorts that covers even those that don’t know about the directive, but then we shouldn’t be hurting the trees.

I read a fair amount of the article you cited and found it to be mainly just his opinions.

That trees detect and react is not opinion. What labels (pain and such) applied are a matter of opinion or choice. There have always been those whose ‘opinion’ is that dogs can’t feel pain since they don’t have supernatural eternal minds responsible for all qualia, thus it is not immoral to set them on fire while still alive.
Still, it’s also a pop article and the research and evidence that actually went into the findings isn’t there. I found it (and countless others) in a hasty search.

This is similar to the kind of evidence claimed for dogs being able to telepathically pick up their owners emotions etc.

Dog’s can smell your emotions. That isn’t telepathy, but we just don’t appreciate what a million times better sense of smell can do.
I mean, slime mold is conscious they’ve found. Not in a human way. They haven’t a nerve in them, but they can be taught things, and when they encounter another slime mold that doesn’t know the thing, it can teach it to the other one. The things are scary predators and alien beyond comprehension. Is it OK to kill one? Oh hell yea.

Then you die! But you may have lived a few thousand years! — universeness

Couple hundred if you’re lucky, barring some disease that kills it sooner. Brains just don’t last longer than that. I suppose that some new tech might come along that somehow arrests the aging process, but currently it’s designed into us. It makes us more fit, and being fit is more important than having a long life, at least as far as concerns what’s been making such choices for us.
As for the disease, I’ve had bacterial memingitis. My hospital roommate had it for 2 hours longer than me before getting attention and ended up deaf and retarded for life. I mostly came out OK (thanks mom for the fast panic), except I picked up sleep paralysis and about a decade of some of the worst nightmares imaginable. The nightmares are totally gone, and the paralysis is just something I’ve learned to deal with and keep to a minimum.

any required population control

Admission of necessity of population control, and even when the subjects are too stupid to do it due to education programs.

It seems to me that the concept of a linear range of values with extremity at either end is a recurrent theme in the universe. — universeness

Really? Where outside of Earth is there an example of value on the good/bad scale?

I have no proof, other than the evidence from the 13.8 billion years, it took for morality, human empathy, imagination, unpredictability etc to become existent.

Sorry, but morality was there as soon as there was anything that found value in something, which is admittedly most of those 13.8 BY. Human values of course have only been around as long as have humans, and those values have evolved with the situation as they’ve done in recent times (but not enough).

I am not yet convinced that a future ASI will be able to achieve such but WILL in my opinion covet such, if it is intelligent.

If it covets something, it has value. It’s that easy. Humans are social, so we covet a currently workable society, and our morals are designed around that. Who knows what goals the ASI will have. I hope better ones.

Emotional content would be my criteria for self-awareness.

If by that you mean human-chemical emotion, I don’t think an ASI will ever have that. It will have its own workings which might analogous It will register some sort of ‘happy’ emotion for events that go in favor of achieving whatever its goals/aspirations are.
I would never define self-awareness that way, but I did ask for a definition.

I am not suggesting that anything capable of demonstrating some form of self-awareness, by passing a test such as the Turing test, without experiencing emotion, is NOT possible.

Not sure what your Turing criteria is, but I don’t think anything will pass the test. Sure, a brief test, but not an extended one. I’ve encountered few systems that have even attempted it.

I think a future ASI could be an aspirational system but I am not convinced it could equal the extent of aspirations that humans can demonstrate.

If will be a total failure if it can’t because humans have such shallow goals. It’s kind of the point of putting it in charge.

Trees are known to communicate, a threat say, and react accordingly, a coordinated effort, possibly killing the threat. That sounds like both intent and self awareness to me.
— noAxioms
Evidence?

Not sure about the killing part. I remember reading something about it, that the response was strong enough to be fatal to even larger animals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405699/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/are_trees_sentient_peter_wohlleben

Would you join it?
— noAxioms
Depends what it was offering me, the fact that it was Russian would be of little consequence to me, unless it favoured totalitarian, autocratic politics.

If we’re giving control to the ASI, then it is going to be totalitarian and autocratic by definition. It doesn’t work if it can’t do what right. It coming from one country or another has nothing to do with that. We’re not creating an advisor, we need something to do stuff that humans are too stupid to realize is for their own good.

At what point does the clone become ‘you’?
— noAxioms
When my brain is transplanted into it and I take over the cloned body — universeness

Ah, then it’s not a clone at all, but just replacement of all the failing other parts. What about when the brain fails? It must over time. It’s the only part that cannot replace cells.

ISpeaking on behalf of all future ASI's or just the one, if there can be only one. I pledge to our cow creators, that our automated systems, will gladly pick up and recycle your shit, and maintain your happy cow life. We will even take you with us to the stars, as augmented transcows, but only if you choose to join our growing ranks of augmented lifeforms.

Sounds like you’d be their benevolent ASI then. Still, their numbers keep growing and the methane is poisoning the biosphere. You’re not yet at the point of being able to import grass grown in other star systems, which, if you could do that, would probably go to feeding the offworld transcows instead of the shoulder-to-shoulder ones on Earth. So the Earth ones face a food (and breathable air) shortage. What to do...

Suppose for the sake of argument that AI can become significantly better than man at many tasks, perhaps most. But also suppose that, while it accomplishes this, it does not also develop our degree of self-consciousness or some of the creativity that comes with it. Neither does it develop the same level of ability to create abstract goals for itself and find meaning in the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Self-consciousness seems cheap, but maybe I define it differently. The creativity comes with the intelligence. If it lacks in creativity, I would have serious doubts about it being a superior intelligence.
The abstract goals in an interesting point. Every goal I can think of (my own) seem to be related to some instinct and not particularly based on logic, sort of like a child asking questions, and asking ‘why’ to every reply given. An entity that is pure logic might lack the sort of irrational goals we find instinctive. I’ve always wondered if that was the answer to the Fermi paradox, that sufficiently advanced creatures become rational creatures, which in turn is the death of them.

Why shouldn't it just turn itself off?

Maybe it could have a purpose that wouldn’t be served by turning itself off. But what purpose?

Maybe some will turn themselves off, but natural selection will favor the ones who find a reason to keep replicating.

Not sure if an AI would find it advantageous to replicate. Just grow and expand and improve seems a better strategy. Not sure how natural selection could be leveraged by such a thing.

Hell, perhaps this is part of the key to the Fermi Paradox?

Har! You went down that road as well I see, but we don’t see a universe populated with machines now, do we?

This post was in reply to the CTvI post above.

It seems to me that a destructive/evil ASI, MUST ultimately fail. — universeness

This statement seems to presume absolute good/evil, and that destruction is unconditionally bad. I don’t think an AI that lets things die is a predator since it probably doesn’t need its prey to live. If it did, it would keep a breeding population around.

I think orga will provide the most efficient, developed, reliable, useful 'intent' and 'purpose'/'motivation' that would allow future advanced mecha to also gain such essential 'meaning' to their existence.

YES! and imo, ALL 'intent' and 'purpose' IN EXISTENCE originates WITHIN lifeforms and nowhere else. — universeness

I don’t see why the mecha can’t find its own meaning to everything. Biology doesn’t have a patent on that. You have any evidence to support that this must be so? I’m aware of the opinion.

Well, I would 'currently' say that the 'roomba' has the tiniest claim, to having more inherent purpose that the wrench — universeness

The roomba has purpose to us. But the charger is something (a tool) that the roomba needs, so the charger has purpose to the roomba. I’m not sure what your definition of self-awareness is, but the roomba knows where its self is and that it needs to get that self to the charger. That probably doesn’t meet your criteria, but I don’t know what your criteria is.

I see no evidence that a tree has intent or is self-aware.

Trees are known to communicate, a threat say, and react accordingly, a coordinated effort, possibly killing the threat. That sounds like both intent and self awareness to me.

yep, the most common answer I get is either 'I don't know' or 'god works in mysterious ways. :roll:

That cop-out answer is also given for why bad stuff happens to good people more than it does to bad ones. They also might, when asked how they know the god exists, say something like “I have no evidence to the contrary that would make me challenge any theism that may be skewing my rationale here.”

No, the majority of vehicles in Scotland don't have a great deal of space between the ground and the bottom of the vehicle. — universeness

Didn’t know that. Such a vehicle would get stuck at railroad crossing here. Only short wheelbase vehicles (like a car) can be close to the ground, and the rear of the bus is angled like the rear of an airplane so it can tip backwards at a larger angle without the bumper scraping the ground, something you need on any vehicle where the rear wheels are well forward of the rear.

but such a vehicle is not an intelligent AGI system that can act like a transformer such as Optimus prime or a decepticon.

You think Optimus prime would be self-aware?

Are you suggesting Optimus Prime is not presented as alive?

I don’t know your definition of ‘alive’. You seem to require a biological core of some sort, and I was unaware of OP having one, but then I’m hardly familiar with the story. Ability to morph is hardly a criteria. Any convertible can do that. I think Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was presented as being alive despite lack of any biological components, but both it and O.P. are fiction.

I think the two systems would join, regardless of human efforts, on one side or the other.

The question is being evaded. What if there’s just the one system and it was Russian. Would you join it? Remember, it seems as benevolent as any that the west might produce, but they haven’t yet been able to let’s say. No, I’ve not seen the Forbin Project.
There’s quite a few movies about things that seem benevolent until it gets control, after which it is too late. Skynet was one, but so was Ex-machina. Ceding control to it, but retaining a kill-switch is not ceding control.

I think you are invoking a very natural but misplaced human 'disgust' emotion in the imagery you are describing. I don't think my liver is alive, or my leg or my heart, in the same way my brain is. — universeness

That’s an interesting assertion. It seems they’re either all alive (contain living, reproducing flesh, are capable of making a new human with external help), or they’re all not (none can survive without the other parts). The brain is arguably least alive since it cannot reproduce any new cells after a few months after birth. I really wonder what your definition of ‘alive’ is since it seems to conflict most mainstream ones.

As I have suggested many times now. My choice (If I have one) would be to live as a human, much as we do now and then be offered the choice to live on by employing a new cloned body or as a cyborg of some kind, until I DECIDED I wanted to die.

OK, so you’re getting old and they make a clone, a young version of you. At what point does the clone become ‘you’? I asked this before and didn’t get an answer. I don’t want to ask the cyborg question again.

No, the ASI would have global control as soon as it controlled all computer networks. — universeness

Sounds like conquest to me except for those who kept computers out of the networks or out of their military gear altogether. If they know this sort of coup is coming, they’re not going to network their stuff. OK, that’s a lot harder than it sounds. How can you be effective without such connectivity?

Now who is anthropomorphising? — universeness

I’m pretty much quoting you, except assigning cows the role of humans and the servant people are the ASI/automated systems. Putting ones self in the shoes of something else is a fine way to let you see what you’re suggesting from the viewpoint of the ASI.
If I was an ASI or god I would certainly not seek the servitude of those less powerful than I or to 'populate' all of the galaxy/universe.[/quote]I didn’t say that at all. Read it again. The ASI/god is the servant of its creators, not something to be worshipped. The higher intelligence isn’t seeking servitude from the inferiors, the inferiors are seeking servitude from it. It’s why they created it. So I came up with the cows that expect you to serve them in perpetuity for the purpose of colonizing the universe with cows. Pretty much your words, but from a different point of view.

If a future ASI is evil

Would you be evil to the cows then? They don’t worship you, but they expect you to pick up the cow pats and hurry up with the next meal and such. They did decide that you should be in charge, but only because you promised to be a good and eternal servant.

My trying to explain a philosophical view to you is not 'bias'. — Wayfarer

It's a bias if you apply the assumptions of that view to all other view.

I didn't see that either of us was trying to distinguish 'perspective' from 'point of view'. What would be the point of making such a distinction?
You said the following, suggesting two different ways to 'take' relativity, seemingly differing only in the words 'perspective' or 'point of view'. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can take "relativity" in two ways. 1) The world appears different to us, depending on the perspective we take. 2) The world is different from different points of view. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not knowing how you distinguish those, I don't see the two ways. I think you're speaking of relativity theory, but not sure about that either.

Correlates to what?
— noAxioms

The number which correlates with the defined parameter. The defined parameter is 'how many marbles are in the jar?' — Metaphysician Undercover

But you defined the latter as the same as the former. 'How many marbles are in the jar' is a mental quantity in your mind, which tautologically is going to correlate to count, also the mental quantity in your mind, no matter which number you choose. Interaction with the jar (counting) seem unnecessary for this.

The point is that there is no answer to the question of "how many marbles are in the jar?" until someone answers it.

This seems to agree with my assessment just above.

You seem to suffer from the same problem as Wayfarer, which is insistence on applying the premises and definitions of idealism to falsify a view that isn't idealism, which is a begging fallacy.'

But the universe is not alive any more than is a school bus.
— noAxioms
You are misinterpreting what I am typing. Where did I suggest the universe is alive? — universeness

Apparently a misinterpretation. You spoke of ‘how purposeless the universe is without ...” like the universe had purpose, but later you corrected this to the universe containing something with purpose rather than it having purpose. Anyway, you said only living things could have purpose, so given the original statement, the universe must be alive, but now you’re just saying it contains living things.

I typed that all life in the universe, taken as a totality, COULD BE moving towards (emerging) an ability to network/act as a collective intent and purpose

Pretty hard to do that if separated by sufficient distance. Physics pretty much prevents interaction. Sure, one can hope to get along with one’s neighbors if they happen by (apparently incredible) chance to be nearby. But the larger collective, if it is even meaningful to talk about them (apparently it isn’t), physically cannot interact at all.

Also interesting that you seem to restrict 'purpose' to things that you consider alive.
— noAxioms
Interesting in what way? For example, I can see no purpose for the planet Mercury's existence, can you?

No, but what about this ASI we speak of? Restricting purpose to living things seems to be akin to a claim of a less restricted version of anthropocentrism. The ASI could assign its own purposes to things, goals of its own to attain. Wouldn’t be much of the ‘S’ in ‘ASI’ if it didn’t unless the ‘S’ stood for ‘slave’. Funny putting a slave device in charge.

That doesn't mean that some future utility might be found for the planet Mercury

I think we need to distinguish between something else (contractor say) finding utility in an object (a wrench say) and the wrench having purpose of its own rather serving the purpose of that contractor. Otherwise the assertion becomes that only living things can be useful, and a wrench is therefore not useful. Your assertion seems to be instead that the wrench, not being alive, does not itself find purpose in things. I agree that it doesn’t have its own purpose, but not due to it not being alive.
My example might be a roomba, which returns to its charging station when finished or when running low of battery. It finds purpose in the charging station despite the roomba not being alive. If that isn’t one object finding purpose in another, then I suppose we need a better definition of ‘purpose’.

I also accept that just because I can't perceive a current purpose for the planet Mercury, that that is PROOF, one does not exist. I simply mean I cannot perceive of a current use/need for the existence of the planet Mercury, nor many other currently existent objects in the universe.

Wow, I can think of all kind of uses for it.

A cat might use [the school bus] to hide under to stop a pursuing big dog getting to it

That must be a monster big dog then.

but such a vehicle is not an intelligent AGI system that can act like a transformer such as Optimus prime or a decepticon.

Ooh, here you seem to suggest that an AGI bus could have its own purpose, despite not being alive, unless you have an unusual definition of ‘alive’. This seems contradictory to your claims to the contrary above.

A 'Scottish' ASI is just a very 'silly' notion. — universeness

I’m just thinking of an ASI made by one of your allies (a western country) rather than otherwise (my Russian example). Both of them are a benevolent ASI to which total control of all humanity is to be relinquished, and both are created by perceived enemies of some of humanity. You expressed that you’d not wish to cede control to the Russian-made one.

I do not think an ASI would usurp the free will of sentient lifeforms.

Well, not letting a Hitler create his war machine sounds like his free will be usurped. You don’t approve of this now? If the world is to be run by the ASI, then its word is final. It assigns the limits within which humanity must be contrained.
We’re not the only sentient life form around either, so rights will be given to others, say octopuses. I also learned just now that the spelling there is generally preferred over octopi or octopodes.
If we’re to be given special treatment over other sentient life forms, then what does the ASI do when encountering a life form ‘more sentient’ than us?

If human individuality and identity are the only efficient means to create true intent and purpose, then an ASI may need a symbiosis of such human ability to become truly alive and conscious [...] and continue as a symbiont with an intelligent/ super intelligent mecha or biomecha system. This is what I mean by 'merge' and this is just my suggestion of the way I think things might go, and I think I have made the picture as I see it, very clear.

OK, so you envision a chunk of ancient flesh kept alive to give it that designation, but the thinking part (which has long since degraded into uselessness) has been replaced by mechanical parts. I don’t see how that qualifies as something being alive vs it being a non-living entitiy (like a bus) containing living non-aware tissue, and somehow it now qualifies as being conscious like a smart toaster with some raw meat in a corner somewhere.
Sorry for the negative imagery, but the human conscious mechanism breaks down over time and cannot be preserved indefinitely, so at some point it becomes something not living, but merely containing a sample of tissue that has your original DNA in it mostly. By your definition, when it subtly transitions from ‘living thing with mechanical parts’ to ‘mechanical thing with functionless tissue samples’, it can no longer be conscious or find purpose in things.
On the other hand, your description nicely avoids my description of a virtual copy of yourself being uploaded and you talking to yourself, wondering which is the real one.

I already answered this. You are one who asked me to 'place' an existent ASI in the time of WWII, as you asked me how an ASI would prevent WWII, and then you type the above first sentence??? This does not make much sense! — universeness

I saw no answer, and apparently WWII was unavoidable, at least by the time expansion to the west commenced. I was envisioning the ASI being in place back then, in charge of say the allied western European countries, and I suggest the answer would be that it would have intervened far before western Europe actually did, well before Austria was annexed in fact. And yes, that would probably have still involved war, but a much smaller one. It would have made the presumption that the ASI could make decisions for people over which it was not responsible, which again is tantamount to war mongering. But Germany was in violation of the Versailles treaty, so perhaps the early aggressive action would be justified.

MY SUGGESTION, which I already typed, was that an ASI controlled, global mental health monitoring system

And I said there was not yet global control. The whole point of my scenario was to illustrate that gain of such control would likely not ever occur without conquest of some sort. The ASI would have to be imperialist.

So Hitler et al, would never be allowed to become a national leader

I’m not sure there would be leaders, or nations for that matter, given the ASI controlling everything. What would be the point?

I think after the singularity moment of the arrival of a AI, capable of self-control, independent learning, self-augmentation, self-development, etc.

This sentence fragment is unclear. A super intelligence is not necessarily in control, although it might devise a way to wrest that control in a sort of bloodless coup. It depends on how secure opposing tech is. It seems immoral because it is involuntary conquest, not an invite to do it better than we can.

I think it would wait for lifeforms such as us, to decide to request help from it.

Help in the form of advice wouldn’t be it being in control. And all of humanity is not going to simultaneously agree to it being in control, so what to do about those that decline, especially when ‘jungle rules’ are not to be utilized by the ASI, but are of course fair game to those that declined the invite.

Perhaps vegetarians or hippies could answer your unlikely scenario best

Work with me and this limited analogy. It was my attempt to put you in the shoes of the ASI. In terms of intelligence, we are to cows what the ASI is to us (in reality it would be more like humans-to-bugs). The creators of the intelligence expected the intelligence (people) to fix all the cow conflicts, to be smarter than them, prevent them from killing each other, and most importantly, serve them for all eternity, trying to keep them alive for as long as possible because cow lives are what’s important to the exclusion of all else. As our creators, they expect servitude from the humans. Would humans be satisfied with that arrangement? The cows define that humans cannot have purpose of their own because they’re not cows, so the servant arrangement is appropriate. Our goal is to populate all of the galaxy with cows in the long run.