I’ve got some reading to do ;). Will be fun!

Might take some time - am too busy these days on a software startup (in addition to my normal software job) …. But I like thinking about this stuff. Food for the brain ;)

Haha thanks

It appears that you haven't read any Hume at all.
— Corvus

Suffice to say you are not an honest interlocutor. Take it easy.
6h — AmadeusD

Well it has been 25+ years since I studied philosophy at mcgill and ubc. And I used to be able to name drop and think that meant something….

I believe that most of my opinions are out of date, and am adjusting to trying to survive in this forum. will take a few months. Probably longer.

However - I would say that if you can’t say something without referring abstractly to other up to date known facticities circa 2024, I applaud your efficiency but laud the lack of a Socratic method ;)

And a forum… just seems the right place for the Socratic method.

The first problem with this definition is that not a single human being alive or dead has ever achieved AGI by that standard. — Pierre-Normand

Interestingly enough the last person who is thought to have known all knowledge was Thomas Young from a few hundred years ago when knowledge was still small enough.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_Who_Knew_Everything#:~:text=This%20biography%20is%20subtitled%20Thomas,idea%20of%20Young's%20polymathic%20career.

The other problem is that the standard of comparison is much too vague — Pierre-Normand

Agreed the AGI that is typically presented would be some god like creature that can do what humans can do - even though we don’t really understand how himans do what we do.

Until we understand ourselves better we won’t get anywhere with trying to make an independent version of ourselves. Now an insect though…. That seems like a worthy endeavour.

I think that something more akin to human-like AGI is achievable if 1) you train the artificial neural network to govern its own execution, and 2) enable it to develop explicit queryable decomposable models - like some sort of knowledge graph - and to navigate through those models as it rationalises through a problem. — Malcolm Lett

Intuitively we can speculate that some sort of loop / feedback mechanism that keeps it going would be part of the workings. But let’s crawl before we try to run a marathon. An insect like being would be a great first step. Even an extremely limited insect…. Very limited in a lot of ways but an independent actor in the world. I think of unsolvable puzzles and logical paradoxes - something that it may be trained to try to solve and forever fail. And that failing can teach it. So it looks for something else - another context - to attempt a proof. Ad infinitum really. But how to give it that sort of instruction, and how would it actually attempt to carry it out, and what access to context would it have? Could it get new contexts itself? How? would the consciousness arise by solving the paradox (which is to understand that it isn’t solvable)? Something that couldn’t possibly be a pattern predictive outcome…. The new Turing test of sorts.

Instinct. That is all an insect has (or so we surmise) to accomplish its goals. Not sure if there is any logic beyond what is built into that. Interaction with the world to achieve even one goal - and be able to handle any input and keep that goal. Then we have a first step.

Then the problem of sapiens comes in… and it is a huge problem. Just the language we have and the nuances and abstract theoretical sarcastic bluffs of logic and thoughts….

So, I am more interested in probing qualitatively the sorts of beings AI conversational agents are along as many dimensions of mindedness (or cognitive skills) as possible. — Pierre-Normand

Do you not like the term AGI because you think about AI as a facticity as it currently is, and don’t believe there is a need to judge it based on a presupposed quality of what may be termed AGI? That certainly makes sense - if I have restated your words correctly.

I was referring to the risks of the current iterative kind. And the risk is us, not the AI.

My opinion isn’t very popular, as everyone likes the new and shiny. But I have yet to see evidence of any kind of AGI, nor any evidence that AGI research has even made a first step. Let’s make an insect AGI and then we have made some progress towards autonomy.

We have made something that can mimick. And mimick how we learn in a specific narrow context. That is amazing and will expand. Using all of human knowledge as its database from which to make patterns.

However you cant prove something is more than just a pattern by repeatedly showing us the pattern that shows you what you want it to….

I consider it implausible that you have "alternate valid things you can accept, that are both logically sound". But then I'm an antifoundationalist. — wonderer1

Great video thanks for posting it!

Anyways ya. Maybe i am wrong. Ok by me, but am trying to figure out where.

…. To reply: Interesting. So you don’t believe that there is more than one valid belief on any one subject or topic? You believe in absolute truth but we may never know it and that is ok? Is that the gist?

That may be the case, but in the mean time we go along making beliefs anyways. And it seems to me there is almost always more than one valid answer to anything not trivial or simple.

For instance helping the poor / marginalized in society: some people believe that helping others is best achieved by providing them direct financial help, and others believe that helping them compete fairly is the best long term approach. It is hard to say that either has no merit, depending on the circumstance. But it would be folly to believe that only one way of doing things is always correct.

Or… thinking the world from a woman’s view is going to have different and valid conclusions than looking at it from a man’s? At least sometimes?

If 2 people have a different set of facts available to them, then we could say they are both uneducated in reality. However their conclusions about the sets of facts may be understandable and valid logically. And aren’t we all uneducated in reality to some degree?

Which seems to go along with the quote and video you posted….

Assuming you have alternate valid things you can accept, that are both logically sound…. Then your decision is a moral decision. Assuming you like that word for non logical decisions.

And if you accept that basic acceptance of the world amounts to a tautology (I’m not going that far) then the conclusion would be that all epistemology involves moral decisions.

I like the hand written copy. Just for aesthetic reasons.

The focus here on the cogito: at issue seems to be what someone accepts of the world. As a starting point.

Accepting the bare solipsistic minimum seems to be ok with logic abstractions, but nobody takes those seriously (can’t ever recall someone committing suicide (for instance) because of a fault of reasoning and logic in the cogito).

Accepting the world - from Heidegger to Schopenhauer (just cause they rhyme, so please choose a different range, although phenomenology to nascent determinism seems ok…) entails accepting reality in some fashion. Big shock here (sarcasm) that people with different experiences accept different things. Acceptance comes after experience. Post-hoc. Nobody starts life with the cogito.

What are the principles that underlie the acceptance? That is always the interesting thing from my point of view, and information - or opinions on this - seem very sparse.

Hunters vs gatherers? I would suggest that those of us who believe that everything (or to be fair, the thing in this particular case) can be reduced to such a simple thing should also consider that it probably doesn’t tell us very much.

Of more interest is the fact that of course the author is correct. And also incorrect. What is missing is the other side of the argument. And then the normalization of both sides (only 2? Lets just stick to 2 for now) into a shared lowest common denominator (haha) from which the principles of acceptance come. That there are different flavours should be embraced, so that we have something interesting to talk about.

So is every epistemological problem really a moral problem? As that is where is seems to lead. Not sure…. would have to give that some more thought. Or research cause it’s already out there somewhere.

Thanks I’ll take a read

Thanks. I do tend to ramble on a bit though haha. Just my take on it though, although I am always ready to be convinced otherwise. Looking for the most plausible explanation really aren’t we?

It ends up being a critique of how we think. Aka how we logically thinks

It is a resolution in that it posits that logic is in itself invalid except where we can consider it to be complete. The conclusion would be that logic is only absolutely correct when it is relative.

And a self referential statement like that - logically derived - implies that it is absolute, if that statement is to be believed absolutely. Therefore relativity has nothing to do with it, even though that was the purpose of the statement. Negate it and follow through the loop to the same point, ad infinitum.

It is not a solvable problem.

Now that is theoria. In praxis, we aren’t too much concerned over this. And the avoidance of self referentially applying propositions like that is all part of accepting the world - else we would be all solipsists, or one step above that (meaning we accept logic as valid as part of the world… so avoiding that would mean we accept the world in absolute anarchy, which I think some do…)

But this distinction is interesting when we consider what we can be certain about. It seems that we are certain about what at base level we accept of the world. Substitute that for “I think”, which would really be “I accept” therefore I am, because there really isn’t much of a choice. So we are left to logically backfill the acceptance with an incomplete structural set of thinking patterns. Which are great when applied to a set, but fail when thinking about it belonging to its own set of sets that don’t belong to itself etc etc. logic is a tool designed for certain uses.

That is why (one reason anyways) the philosopher doesn’t really think he/she knows anything. We are certain to the extent that we can be convinced.

And the epistemological underpinning of acceptance is experiential, or a-priori if you will, etc etc. lots of room for plausible explanations (and room for some that don’t make sense). Given a very basic acceptance level - what else actually makes sense? I would think that the further up the acceptance chain you go the more specific beliefs and sets of knowledge are in play, and if you actually try to understand them instead of believing you already know what you are supposedly investigating, then the amount of certainty in the world (measured by people purporting certainty about things) to be fairly large, and the amount of falseness that we would recognize to also be less large. Ugh. Never mind.

Also there is the question of if certainty implies truth.

Yes of course. The posit of the statement “certainty is relative” is an absolute statement. Absolute relativity is an oxymoron.

The thought pattern leads to it though. So it is a standard self-referential paradox. Set of all sets kind of stuff. There are lots out logic traps out there. Sometimes we can get out of them by couching our terms and avoiding the validity of self-referential statements… but in the end those never seem to be that convincing. They seem like special case exceptions for no real reason.

The takeaway is that it isn’t a certain statement.

The paradox runs like this:
* everything is relative
* if true then that is an absolute statement
* if it is an absolute statement then everything cannot be relative

“Certainty” doesn’t quite fit in place of “everything”. But close enough.

* certainty is relative
* if true then it’s an absolute statement. If we are to be certain of it then how would we even be certain in a relative way about something so straight forward / simple? It seems impossible to even know what relative certainty is in this case.
* if so, then certainty cannot be relative.

Now interestingly enough, that argument doesn’t make the statement false. It shows that it is not logically complete. Meaning you can’t say that it is always valid. In context… And around the circle we go again.

Does this mean that context with regards to certainty is an invalid parameter?

Does this mean that believing in relativity with regard to certainty is not a logically sound argument (after all the premise cannot be certain)

Or does it simply mean it is a meaningless statement to call anything relative?

I’ll try…. But probably won’t succeed in answering your question.

The ultimate question (no not the one with the answer 42), is how can we know that we know anything. And the answer is we cannot. The best we can do is to convince ourselves of a solipsistic existence (think, therefore exist)…. But no proof can be found - or even what the proof may look like - to prove the world.

So we can know that we know nothing at all. Which is, yes a piece of knowledge. The only knowledge perhaps, but it is a lot stickier than that….

However that is really a tautological problem, as it doesn’t do anything for anyone. We accept the world regardless of mind games, so then the next question is: what can we be certain of, assuming we accept the world? Again if you don’t accept the world then there isn’t much point conversing with you ;). Haha

However given a set of things we do accept about the world - are we certain or more certain of them? Yes we are. That will depend on what context you accept, and if you indeed follow any logical reasoning (I would estimate that 2/3 of people have no logical reasoning capabilities whatsoever beyond habit), which doesn’t really count). These people think with emotions, basically what they want to believe because it makes them feel particular ways. Etc etc. well… probably a lot higher than 2/3. A lot. And of course everyone is logical sometimes and culpable sometimes, so let’s talk percentages of thoughts - I still think it is a lot higher than 2/3.

The point is, we can be certain of some things within a context / framework. But it is only as certain as the framework within which it resides is valid. Take scientific knowledge for example, what we “knew” 200 years ago is out of date in parts because the framework and context had been improved. Ad infinitum.

So certainty is relative.

Without being caught up in the predicates, the idea of the cogito is that the fact of thinking means that there is existence. Because thinking, existence can at least be supposed. Lionino is that what you meant by an impression?

It is a flaw of the cogito that it contains “I”. Because yes the inclusion of “I” does lead inevitably to dualism (as Banno has pointed out).

In any case the question is ill fitted to a logical proof, no?

It is interesting to think that perhaps:

1. The cogito is not a logical preposition
2. It can be - like anything else - be translated into a logical preposition.
3. Then that logical proposition can be proofed.
4. Then any of those proofs can be translated back into an adjusted cogito statement.
5. The adjusted statement doesn’t always make any sense. What was - it green cows?

The problem isn’t the simple logic. Nor is it the cogito (although it has flaws but they haven’t been the focus here). It is of course the translations. Devil in the details.

A goal of philosophers a hundred years ago was to be able to provide a symbolic logic tied to natural language. So just by logic we could determine the truth and falsehoods of statements. That was a failure. Besides the obvious reasons of translation issues, the failure was due to paradoxes in logic (famously Russell’s set of sets, among others…).

And traditionally what we have garnished from the paradoxical failures of logic is that it is a useful tool in a context. With parameters. And a set of assumptions. Because if it’s opened up to any input whatsoever it can never be proven to be logically complete. It is insular in nature.

This grey area of translation makes great fun…. But the mind grows weary of emotional sophistry no?

Not sure what that means. — Banno

We have a winner on aisle 4

The lowest common denominator. What we always get in the end.

Welcome to the machine

Sure. Certainty is often restricted to tautologies. And new ideas are extremely rare. Expression and learning and finding your way to navigate the channel are not.

However, as the pace of technology continues to increase, it seems inevitable that we are going to be getting actual new ideas at least at a glaciers pace

I am not a fan of extremism, left or right. Notice I included unbridled capitalism as a form of ideology that is in the same list as the others, and should have added socialism and its modern forms.

Can anything be done about accepting the blowing of the winds? No. However as long as they are free to blow and there is no pressure exerted to control the direction, we will get a normal pendulum swing on political leanings.

And pressure exerted just means a longer and wider pendulum swing… but swing eventually it will.

Ok ;)

My point was really more about the context

Yes that is an ominous change in the lexicon.

Ideology enforcement is what I was ranting about. Having an ideology isn’t in itself bad. It is good actually. Encourages people to think if all goes well. At worst it is imposed on others or forced in society. Theron lies the problem

If it is I that thinks and given that there is thinking, then isn’t it necessary for “I” to be? Under these conditions, there is no way for “I” to be other than to think. — Mww

True!

Was thinking of a simpler model I guess:

If x thinks, then x exists.

And I guess if x is in a coma and is not thinking - or is successfully meditating then x would not be currently thinking (but capable of thought)

if it rained, the ground is wet; it didn't rain, therefore the ground isn't wet — flannel jesus

That is if a->b, then ~a->~b. Which is only true if you have a very limited and closed system or set to consider. Aka if there is no other way the ground could get wet, except for rain.

Aka the utility of formal logic depends on the validity / context of the parameters being used - their scope. So scope has to be verified and agreed on before logic can aptly be applied to anything really… else the outcomes will not be accepted anyways.

Typically these can be represented with other axiomatic inclusions… but when considering a mapping to reality it is easy to see how that fails at some point…. Just too many variables to take into account. Completeness is the eternal problem.

But the simple cogito? With 2 things that could be easily represented as Booleans? Formal logic does just fine without contradicting itself. I don’t think therefore I don’t exist is not in the truth table as the negation would also have to include the truth of thinking for inclusion - as you so rightly have pointed out

If there were no other way to exist other than to think, Banno would be correct in considering such a closed system. But I dont believe anyone would allow that axiom into the equation.

Yes thanks for the correction. It’s been a long time since I was doing logical proofs. Most of the time now I’m just coding in c / c++ / c#….

Right. Needed to add the boolean p truth phrase as well.

I believe my old friend Russel and Whitehead would balk at the soundness requirement for a true premise when confronted with gobbleydey-gook. Ergo my request for a real world example: In the mapping of reality to symbolic logic it seems like a very salient point to make. Should we not use the same soundness and completeness requirements for our mapping as we do within the closed logic system we are mapping to? Else those variables in use could in fact represent invalid states that would not be useful for inclusion in any computation.

In other words: you have to validate your inputs… usually a purify method is prudent when taking in data from the wild before you include it in your precious logic / code ;). After all you can’t let the wolves in - it’s bad enough they must already know where you live.

IMHO there is no more problem with one religion more than another…. They are all capable of the worst traits imaginable.

Really the religion question is a misdirection. It is really ideology that is the cause of world problems - if you had to pick one thing (and obviously it is more complex than that), that is what I’d pick: ideology.

As a lover of history - really it tells us about ourselves by example - it is clear that whenever ideology is followed instead of practicality, and I consider religion to be an ideology…. The world is always the worse for it.

Mao tse dong and the cultural revolution. Millions starve when farmers were supposed to do their own industry, and city workers grow their own crops.

Stalinist Russia and the 5 year plans and mass starvation.

Communist attempts at governance.

Unbridled capitalism.

If religion were to stick to what it does best - provide support for spiritual needs (aka to me that means existential / epistemological support) it is beneficial to humanity. When it tries to assert power and becomes an ideology is when the shit always hits the fan. And it always seems to become an ideology. I mean even the Dhali Lama is getting involved somewhat in politics.

So…. I lump religion as another player in the power game. Another player. Let them compete I guess as we get the lowest common denominator anyways no matter what we do. Let 100 flowers blossom.

Actually, it's ~(p→ q). — Banno

And those are logically identical, in this case, correct??? Haha

p -> -q. Is identical to ~(p-> q)

So sophistry is the logic?

That is a game and you know it haha. If you really believe in green cows (or think that is a justification for your arguments) you have a few screws loose.

Anyways when you feel like being honest let me know. You can’t provide a real world example because your argument has no epistemological foundation… else you would provide it.

Just an aside, I don’t mind your intransigent. It’s refreshing. So I know you can accept a rebuttal. As can I.

Well the operators in logic have to relate to something.

And they are contextually relevant as that defines their set. Their axiomatic assumptions

So… give me an real world example of your logic and then I’ll consider what your atoms are made of ;)

The opposite of p->q is of course p->~q

It is not ~p -> ~q

I think that is your logical error

Note the negation. — Banno

But, ¬q → (p ∨ ¬p) is equally valid — Banno

So not existing, implies that it thinks or doesn’t think? That is invalid. It obviously doesn’t think.

Real world example? Or are we playing games with letters ;). Haha

Give me a real world example of

P-> ~q

I believe this is just sophistry.

An example of something that thinks but doesn’t exist.

[

But what you have not shown is that if P thinks then it exists — Banno

No. P may or may not be capable of thought. A coma vegetable for instance. Or P may be an amoeba. Or a philosophy professor.

But that fact does not invalidate the cogito.

This covers it: q -> (p v~p)

P -> Q. P thinks. Therefore it exists. P can’t be said to not exist if it thinks.

If P doesn’t think. It may or may not exist. For instance P may be dead, or may be in a meditative state or in a coma…. Or it may be a fly on the wall incapable of what we

So then we have:
~p -> (q v ~q)

Now to go the other way

If q exists, then it may or may not think. It may be a bug. Forget the fact that bugs “might” think. Say amoeba instead of bug.
q -> (p v~p)

But if q doesn’t exist then it doesnt think. A logocal impossibility.
~q -> ~p

That I think is as far as it can be taken in a limited scope. And I see no refutation of cogito ergo sum.

Or another simple way: existence doesn’t necessitate thinking, but it doesn’t preclude it either.

2 variables, so we have 4 entries in the truth table. No need for any more. Of course if I err please chime in!

1. Accept existence
2. Accept causality in support of existence.
3. Fail to make sense of causality. Reject it.
4. Accept eternity in support of existence.
5. Fail to make sense of eternity. Reject it.
6. Reject existence in favour of the number 42.

I am thinking this based purely on induction, so I don’t believe it. But I think it possible: All the main players and people worried about AI aren’t worried because they think that AGI will come about and overthrow us. Notice that they never talk much about their reasons and never say AGI. They think the real danger is that we have a dangerous tool to use against each other. Controlling media, consumption, learning, consolidation of power to the extent that George Orwell never would even dream off. It is the perfection of a slave: Iterative AI. It makes the philosophical theory of determinism come true for all effective purposes. Muhahaha

Anyways that was a bit of a rant. No proof, don’t really believe it is going to be as bad as any of that (don’t think it will be peaches either).