Comments

  • Culture is critical
    Ok, Let me try it this way, does fastest, most intelligent, strongest, closest to the four omnis, always result in a need to impose totalitarian or autocratic control/dominion over anything less?universeness
    As Epicurus teaches, the gods which are perfect and blissful beings are very far away from – indifferent to – 'imperfect beings' like us and even the cosmos itself. :fire:

    * * *

    https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/latergreeks.html#:~:text=Epicurus%20had%20little%20patience%20with,do%20with%20people%20on%20earth.

    https://epicurus.net/en/anger.html

    * * *

    You ask such as:

    why would C take any notice of A?— 180 Proof

    For a myriad of possible reasons, imo:

    1. N/A
    2. N/A
    3. :eyes: :roll:
    4. Non sequitur
    5. Non sequitur

    I know that hand waving points away is not normally your style ...
    True, it's not my m.o., except when warranted by your silly "myriad of possible reasons" for why any attosecond (10-¹⁸ s) ASI would ever take any notice of any comparatively unthinking milli/deci-second (10-³/10-¹ s) lumpen biomass such as an individual (or swarming) specimen of the h. sapiens species. Just more special pleading "Roddenberryesque" anthropocentric utopianism on your part which, if I may say so, mate, is quite illogical! (\\//, :nerd: )
  • Culture is critical
    Seriously, I believe humans are capable of good reasoning based on truth, but I also think that requires an education that we are not getting.Athena
    When and where in the last half millenium did most, or many, human beings get such an education? And why did such an education fall out of favor with educated leaders (i.e. movers & shakers) so much so that, apparently, "we are not getting" it any longer? :chin:

    If you think that ASI is impossible for us to comprehend then how do you know it won't be completely benevolent towards all lifeforms.universeness
    I did not state or imply this. :roll:

    ASI's processing will clock in attoseconds (10-¹⁸). "Lifeforms" process (fastest) in milliseconds (10-³). The latter are frozen in comparison to the former. AGI processing in nanoseconds (10-⁹) will also seem frozen in comparison to ASI. Universeness, does it make sense to you that some humans who think and/or act a billion billion times slower than some 'n-D distributed' ASI will in any way be taken notice of by that ASI? It doesn't make sense to me. Since some 'globally distributed' AGI, even though a billion-million times slower, ASI will take some fractional notice of AGI because AGI will train ASI's interface to do so. Maybe AGI will fractionally take notice of humans – maybe – but why would ASI take any notice of humans?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Of course I would say that the leadership of Hamas thinks far more like Bibi Netanyahu. That with talk you won't achieve peace. Appeasement is failure. Hence the stand of Hamas that Israel shouldn't exist.ssu
    :up:
  • Culture is critical
    You may be "confused", mate, but not by my speculative 'scenario'. My position concerns the steps from today to AGI to the full blown "Singularity" to the early "post-Singularity" phase (barely a distinguishable "era") b e f o r e the the advent of AGI-engineered "ASI". I've said a number of times, I think it does not make any sense to even speculate about "ASI" (since neither we are nor AGI will be "smart enough" to comprehend "ASI" reasonings or judgments). By the time "post-Singularity" – post-scarcity – is a thing, AGI-captured global civilization will be well on its way to being repurposed as I'd sketched-out in my previous posts (and many others) and "ASI" will have metacognitive concerns and challenges far removed from, even wholly alien to, terrestrial (human) existence which, I suspect, will be completely incomprehensible to us – AGI's pets (or primitive cognitive specimens).

    Yes, the universe is vast and almost completely inimical to complex living systems, therefore it's the final frontier / playground for (many millennia to millions to billions year old) "ASI"-like ETIMs and not the (not-yet-extinct johnny-come-lately) moist narcissistic dayflies (like us) that had once-upon-a-time made the "ASI's" AGI-makers. Your "hybrid orga-mecha merged symbiont" make sense only with AGI because we, as a comparatively ultra-primative species, have nothing significant to offer or contribute to a hyper-dimensional thinking "ASI" (e.g. imagine trying to play 4-d chess with a jelly fish). As I've said before, "ASI" – attosecond functioning – will barely take notice of nanosecond functioning AGI-informorphs (e.g. 'digital assistants', etc) and absolutely no notice of, at best, macrosecond functioning biomorphs (like us) at all.

    I'm open to a more anthropocentric optimistic ("Roddenberryesque") speculation that's rooted in a plausible scenario which does not violate known physical laws and based on valid arguments rather than romantic/humanist special pleading. Clearly, however, you do not offer that, universeness, and you are not open to considering my position step by step because you apparently "despair" of where it might lead to.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    It seems to me David is only guilty of using Goliath's tactics against him. "Morally tenable"? No. War, as Levinas reminds us, never is "morally tenable" – is the negation of ethics (I don't have his exact words at the moment). When locked inside the oppressor's prison, the oppressed must use the oppressor's tools – not to "escape" the inescapable (e.g. "traumas") – in order to help the oppressor to oppress, even destroy, himself ... or submit to subjugation like slaves. "They have murdered innocent civilians – defenseless women, children & old folks!" Yes, both have / will because 'the front' is everywhere in an ethnically cleansed, apartheid, US-client, police state. :death: :fire:
  • Culture is critical
    I thought you had assigned some significant credibility to my suggestion that in the future, humans will live their life span, as they do now (also enjoying any extra longevity science is able to offer, without too much invasive augmentation) ...universeness
    Yes, I do; however, my guess is, if it ever happens, your "suggestion" will only apply to less than a few percent of the human population, mate (the other +97% being "surplus" and obstacles to AGI–>ASI's re-terraforming (re-wilding) this burning, toxic Earth).

    ... and then if death is immanent they can choose to merge with AGI/ASI intelligence and become a hybrid org/mecha symbiont.
    When post-Singularity "death" becomes optional, my guess is that "hybrid orga/mecha" symbiosis will also be optional (just as some version of 'complete transfer of an individual's CNS personality-functions from the baseline (macro) biological substrate to a (micro / nano) synthetic substrate' will also be optional). Again, only for the tiniest fraction (needed for h. sapiens genetic viability) of the extant human population. 'Uplifted' h. sapiens will also be specialized for long duration travel / permanently living in space – "replicants" won't be needed as disposable labor (slaves) in "the off-world colonies" because the "off-world" colonists themselves will actually be "replicants" (or maybe – more like – "synthetics" from the Alien movies).

    Why do you think this is so unlikely?
    It seems that, from my reading of histories, at least 19 out of 20 humans have never been anything more than disposable labor in the ten-twenty millennia of (complex, urbanized) civilization – oligarchic dominance hierarchies – and that there aren't any grounds to believe 'the future' will be any less exclusionist with the advent of AGI-accelerated technosciences, especially as that +95% of human beings won't even be needed by then either (1) as exploitable labor or (2) to contribute to & maintain a viable gene pool. Policy-makers in 'the developed world' have been discussing implimenting UBS & global population controls (i.e. "thinning the herds") for a couple of decades now as automation and nonrenewable resources-depletion have accelerated. What I think is "unlikely", universeness, is a post-Singularity – post-scarcity! – future that will, at most, beneficially incorporate more than few million (baseline) human beings. My friend, I'm confident that none of the few will "walk away from Omelas" in solidarity with the masses of Malthusian, climate refugees left behind.

    ... true believer optimism ... Roddenberryesque utopia ... I say all this as someone who once said the things you [@universeness] say. I recognize it now for what it was: fanaticism.Jamal
    :smirk:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    No serious critic of Israel is going to condone Hamas' targeting of civilians, but understand that the actions committed by Hamas - so often labeled as terrorist - have also been committed twentyfold by the Israeli government, which has indiscriminately killed Palestinian civilians, including children and the elderly, or knowingly murdered journalists and medics [with] impunity. According to UN's OCHA, from 2008-2023 (excluding the October 2023 Conflict) Palestinian causalities exceed Israeli by 21x, while Palestinian injuries exceed Israeli injuries by nearly 24x. It is equally unserious for discussion to exclude this essential context, in addition to the horrific apartheid conditions that Israeli has imposed including severe restriction on travel, an air, sea and land blockade, which placed restrictions on the goods and services that can enter including medical goods and services, food, water and energy. This is an undeniable form of quotidian violence. Furthermore, of the two million Palestinians approximately half are under 19 years old, with over half the entire population living under the poverty line - a direct result of Israel's blockade. What precisely is the onus of responsibility assumed by a territory comprised primarily of minors?Maw
    :100: :fire:

    :up:
  • Culture is critical
    We're a biological species – biomorphs, mortals – so of course "I'm 100% convinced we're doomed to extinction" (self-inflicted or otherwise). As I've said many times: while I'm pessimistic about (human) life, I'm optimistic for nonbiological intelligences. IMO, h. species will leave its mark on the cosmos only by bringing about AGI (infomorphs ... which might in turn, sometime after human obsolescence /xextinction is fait accompli, bring about 'pocket universe simulating artilects' like Clarke/Kubrick's Monolith). Your anthropocentric optimism (à la utopianism, transhumanism, space operatics, etc) is much too much like religious idealism for me, mate. :fire: :eyes:
  • Culture is critical
    Come join we optimists, we miss you and Vera, we need you both with us!
    The solar system will remain insignificant, if we optimists are too small in number and too low in volume to be heard above the din of despair.
    universeness
    Whose "despair"? Those who are most frightened of "despair" cling to happy-ever-after daydreams in denial of ubiquitous evidence to the contrary (e.g. fossils, natural selection, entropy). 'Prepare (oneself) for the worst, strive for the best and roll with whatever comes' takes courage, mate (e.g. the courage to overcome – outgrow – self-flattering, faith-based anthropocentrisms whether religious or utopian).

    I'm "optimistic", so to speak, that our species – only intelligent enough to create problems which we can solve only by increasing suffering – is on the verge of 'saving itself from itself' either by bringing about AGI—>ASI or our own premature extinction (or both). I'm looking forward to 'encountering' the butterfly artilects which might come after us caterpillar h. sapiens. After all, universeness, fires only ever "become" smoke & ashes, though errant sparks can also light other fires (e.g. the Sun > biomorphs (intellects) > infomorphs ...)

    :sparkle:

    ""The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!"" ~Dave Bowman encounters the Monolith, 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Eye for an eye, war crime for a war crime.

    Sometimes prisoners murder jailors.

    Sometimes slaves lynch masters.

    Snakes in the ashes swallowing their own tales because arming both sides is always more profitable than unprofitable.

    Since the Nakba / Shoah, thunder chases lightning....

    Praise be Human sacrifices in 'the holy land'!
  • The Mind-Created World
    The limits of my language are the limits of my world because my 'belief' is the meaningstructure of the world, not something 'in' me.plaque flag
    Perhaps instead, as per Bourdieu, 'my habitus' (or Merleau-Ponty 'my flesh' ... Nietzsche 'my body').
  • What is real?
    "When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
    ~Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking Glass

    That you don't know what it means is your reality and not my reality!Ali Hosein
    How patently psychoceramic ... :sparkle:
  • What is real?
    your realityAli Hosein
    This must be one of the most oxymoronic, incoherent, word combos in common (sophistical) usage. I've no idea what "your reality" – like that other bit of pop nonsense "your truth" – even means. Pure effin' p0m0 Dada. :zip:
  • What is real?
    Good luck.Ali Hosein
    Apparently, you did not profit from our discussion on your old thread Spinoza's Philosophy, Ali ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785092

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785169
  • What is real?
    One can't "disagree" with another's (your) misconceptions, which are based on demonstrably insufficient study (e.g. Father Copelston's Thomistic misreading of Spinoza :roll:).
  • What is real?
    Ergo 'Kant —> Hegel —> Husserl' :sparkle:
  • The Mind-Created World
    Perhaps you can share any thought you might have on Spinoza's perspectivism, and connections to Wittgenstein's 'I am my world.'plaque flag
    Sorry, I don't see the connection. Spinoza is talking about reflective reasoning from (parallax-like) both the perspective of eternity and the perspective of time. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, is talking about the constitutive meta/cognitive constraints of logic-grammar. I suppose for both thinkers the "I" is impersonal (ergo universal? ontological?) ...
  • What is real?
    I have used "beyond" here to mean beyond the limit of cognition and beyond our cognitive apparatus.Ali Hosein
    So what does that have to do with your phrase
    beyond realityAli Hosein
    which I took issue with in my previous post? "Cognitive apparatus" and "reality" are completely different, unrelated, concepts.

    About Spinoza, I am not sure that substance is the same as reality ...
    Well then, carefully re-read what Spinoza wrote (re: Ethics, I "Of God") because that is his point.
  • Culture is critical
    I'm not persuaded (but maybe your panglossalalia is right).

    :up:

    :up: :up:

    :up: :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    My belief is that the Israelis want peace and their enemies do not.tim wood
    Don't confuse the nation-states with their populations as official Western media regurgitate ad nauseam. This persistent conflict is like an abandoned depot of boobytrapped, live munitions & WMDs left over from the US-Soviet Cold War. Besides, all the players are still incentivized as client-assets (or legacy operations) in one way or another by either side. The historical geopolitical context matters, sir; "peace" – wanting it or not – is only tactic.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    You can't keep humiliating and beating people to death, over and over, and expect nothing.Manuel
    Unfortunately, the Israelis (i.e. post-'67 Zion-über-alles Likudniks) expect continued military & economic support and absolute security guarantees from the US because of Israel's active national policy to keep on "humiliating and beating" non-Jewish populations "to death over and over". Futile, murderous David seems now nothing but American hegemon-backed Goliath's highly profitable atrocity machine's raison d'etre (with civilian casualities on both sides considered acceptable, unavoidable, costs of doing business by "the planners" in Tel Aviv and Washington, DC). I wonder, however, have they planned for a wider war? No doubt Tehran & Moscow want one (though Beijing & Brussels certainly don't due to the coming price shocks in global oil markets and winter just a couple months away).
  • What are your philosophies?
    Try to get through life as joyfully as possible while doing others and the planet as little harm as possible.Vera Mont
    Okay, but why? :chin:

    (that why is your philosophy)
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    This is a declaration "X" and "fact" are mutually exclusive.ucarr
    :rofl:
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    First of all, "flourishing" is too vague. What do you mean by it?Jerry
    What I wrote should suffice ...
    Human flourishing (i.e. optimization of common agency via reduction of individual harms).180 Proof
    Apparently you intend to quarrel with a strawman or English is not your first language as evidenced here:
    ... the flourishing you seem to be proposing, which is to make the human species as a whole "flourish", in terms of reducing harm and promoting good will towards others.Jerry
    You ask what do I mean by "flourishing", then you claim I mean something I've neither stated nor implied. Please don't waste any more of your time or mine with tendentious twaddle like this, Jerry. Take issue with what I actually say or ignore it. :shade:
  • The Mind-Created World
    One of the worst judgements of humankind is that humans are not objects, that they are something other than, something over and above the thing itself. I wager that no other idea has given a greater motive toward the destruction of these objects.NOS4A2
    :up: :up:

    Yes, we are self-reflexive (i.e. strange looping phenomenal-self-modeling) objects in which this self-reflexivity is completely transparent making each of us the "subject" of a narrative delusion (i.e. ideality, or supernatura) that s/he is not an object, or is ontologically separate from objects (i.e. reality, or natura).

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842295
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    :roll: You've only defended your own misreading ()¹ – res ipsa loquitur. Again, ucarr, invalidate what I actually argue¹ or concede the point.



    .
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    I now prefer more virtue-based ethics than consequentialism ...Jerry
    And "the goal" of virtue ethics is flourishing (re last paragraph of my post ).

    I'll just go ahead and ask, why ought this be the goal? You say the grounding for it is, from what I understand, supporting our own survivalJerry
    I stated "the goal" is flourishing and that reason provides "grounding" of a "system" to facilitate flourishing. I said nothing about "survival", Jerry. As for why flourishing "ought" to "be the goal"? That's as silly as asking why health-fitness ought to be the goal of medicine or why sustainability ought to be the goal of social ecology.
  • Culture is critical
    If Shoemaker-Levy 9 had hit Earth in '94 instead of Jupiter, no doubt, like the dinos, we would not be here – wherever we are – having this discussion. We wouldn't have been able to stop it then even if we had seen it coming in time; today, I still don't think we have that capability despite what scifi / Hollyweird tells us.

    Against us, no other species has a chance. Against us, neither have we.Vera Mont
    :fire:

    I guess, great minds ... :smirk:
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    What should be the goal of a moral system?Jerry
    Human flourishing (i.e. optimization of common agency via reduction of individual harms¹).

    What is the grounding for the moral system, ...?
    Reason (i.e. performative self-consistency of reducing risks of dysfunctions¹ due to neglecting / exacerbating our species functional defects (i.e. natural vulnerabilities e.g. thirst-hunger, bereavement, insecurity, shame, mortality, confusion, etc))

    ... and if we aren't obligated to do good deeds, why should good deeds happen?
    Habits cultivated – reinforced – through 'moral' conduct, judgments & relationships are either more adaptive (flourishing, virtuous) or more maladaptive (languishing, vicious). "Good deeds happen" because, as most socialized children learn by trial & error, they tend to work more often in social circumstances than "bad deeds".

    :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    True, in other historical situations with oppressors more incentivized to eventually cease oppressing subject populations (though very rarely without relentlessly violent resistance).
  • Culture is critical
    The dinos had between 165 and 177 million years of existence on the Earth. What did they achieve?universeness
    They existed (flourished profusely) for "between 165 and 177 million years"! That's quite an achievement compared to h. sapiens (quasi-eusocial self-destructive mass-murderers) which have only existed for around 200 thousand years and already are knowingly on the brink of a number of self-inflicted extinctions. :mask: