A.I vs. A.A.

I had a flash of brilliance this morning, but how to put in this blogpost in a way that is intelligible, interesting, makes some kind of point, thought-provoking, commentable and/or funny(at least to me)

As with all my flashes of brilliance, this one is likely just 'new to me', so feel free to say, "Pfft, I considered, and rejected that when I was like seven, you moron!", any response is better than no reponse at all.

It must have been wondering through my brain cells for a month or two, my considering Pliny's, what is it, 'idea?', 'notion?' of how artificial intelligence would boot-strap itself up from 'nothing' to avoid problems of biased thinking.

I can't imagine how a Pliny intelligence would operate though, because one of the prerequisites for intelligence is, as is my understanding, awareness. I mean, how does an intelligence solve a problem or avert a crisis if it is not aware of said problem or crisis?

Seems to me that there'd be a hierarchy of nature regarding this, I'll just make one up off the top of my head, why not.

Material. :- rocks and such, completely dumb, unaware, unintelligent.

Simple life. :- micro-organisms with no awareness at all, perhaps fungi, like yeast, barely living at all.

Plants. :- are aware of sunlight, grow towards the sunlight. Some have rudimentary awareness of insects. Venus fly-trap for example.

Fish, animals, birds and insects, which show a variety of awarenesses and quite a bit of intelligence, if intelligence is defined as problem solving.

Seems to me that humans would be on the top of the scale here only if we regard problem solving to be the ultimate in awareness.

There's a good case to be made for that actually. We are aware of our limited awareness and build tools, such as microscopes and telescopes to overcome those limitations. We can't reach out with our minds and 'grok' the stars and galaxies of stars, so we build tools to bring the stars into our field of awareness with photos and such.

Two points here. What is Pliny's intelligence without awareness, if that's what he's saying? What is awareness of the spiritual, what is the spiritual and how is it that quite a lot of people seem to be aware of it?

On the first one, it seems to me that, when trying to build artificial intelligence, we need to build an artificial awareness and that is exactly where bias is going to creep in, the intelligence is biased in favour of it's own awareness because it is not aware of anything outside it's own awareness.

On the second one, I think that spirituality is a confused collection of ideas where we try to imagine that we are aware of something that's just not there. (any ideas on that oneblood?)

Just a story.

It was bitter cold out, and I was watching T.V., playin' around on the computer when I felt the freezing draft hit me. Emma's son had been over to give her a couple of gifts for her birthday, a little calender that you rip off the pages/days as they go by and a snowglobe that you put your own picture in.

The draft must have been hitting my leg for a few minutes before I became aware of, then concerned by, it. "Wonder what's goin' on?", I said, mostly to myself, "The front door must be open."

Sure enough the door was half ajar and I cringed to myself at the bitter, bitter cold that was the night 'out there' while feeling that good warm feeling of knowing that the solution to all my problems was 'just that' simple, and I closed it and locked it.

"Josh didn't close the door all the way, I was catching a freezing draft on my leg, it's bloody FREEZING out there!", I told Emma taking another look at her new picture-frame snowglobe thinking, "Wonder which dollar store that came out of?"

The night went on as usual, Emma called through that Fred, my deceased wife's dad had died. Not that Emma 'usually' calls through that Fred died, of course, just that she'll tell me 'things of interest' if and when they pop into her mind, and such. Old Fred was a nice guy and we had a 'history' quite a while back but I'd mostly lost touch with him over the years. He was one of those guys who was always old to me. He was old when I married his daughter, old when she died about ten years later and old when I'd see him on very odd occasions after that.

I thought about Emma's story about how her dad said that when he died he was going to come back as a crow and watch out for her. We'd laughed about that the odd times we'd walked past a couple of crows sitting on the wires.

The night rolled on as usual, "I'd have a drink for the memory of poor old Fred!", I called through to Emma, although it wasn't usual for me to drink to the newly dead Fred, I will respond with something from time to time. Emma wasn't taking the bait, no rum for me 'tonight'.

It was getting late so I settled Emma in for the night, which included picking up the bird from his make-shift perch, a fan, in her room, to put him to bed, and a glass of ice water for her, not from the tap, but from the cooler.

Prettyboy Floyd, insisted on riding on my shoulder to assist me getting the water for Emma but suddenly flew off, round and round the rooms finally settling on his cage and peeking out the door shaping himself in that banana shape that cockatiels get when they stretch their necks to peek.

I closed Emma's door for the night because she likes her thermostat set to "July", when we'd finished marvelling at how the bird gets scared by nothing at all, silly bird.

Off to bed for Prettyboy Floyd, he gets on his perch next to his favourite mirror image, blanket over the top, but I don't close his cage door, I figure bird-brain or not he knows whether he wants to be in there or not as he is not shy about 'telling me' when he wants to be to bed sometimes.

So, I'm laying in the dark, the monitor glowing and the television flickering eerily as it is wont to do and the matress dips slightly, something has climbed on the bed with me.

"Oh, Prettyboy what's wrong with.. ", I started, turning towards what I imagined was going to be the bird and as I swung round from the monitor to face him my hand went around and touched what I still thought was him, except it felt a little too big to be him.

I don't think that you can imagine how surprised I was when I looked down at a cat! When I looked down at a charcoal grey cat with silvery tip ends like something peeking through the mist, in the flickery light of the television.

I scooped him, I'm calling it him here, I scooped him up in the blanket that he was laying on as if he were MY cat, or as if I were his owner and took the 'bag-o'-cat' I'd made and asked Emma if she could guess what I had.

After I'd popped him back outside, we chatted about how strange that was.. now I wonder if his name was Fred?

Learning to love WRATH?

One of the principal reasons that I do not believe in the existence of the God of the Bible is that He is a paradox.

We hear about 'the Wrath of God' perhaps in the same sermon as the 'all-loving God' and this, to me, is not consistent, a conundrum, a paradox, two puzzle pieces which don't fit.

No amout of looking hypnotically into the distance and repeating, "We cannot fully understand the mind of God." or somesuch can possibly mesh the ideas that God is all-loving and God can be wrathful for me.

There's certainly no getting away from God's Wrath in the Old Testament, the foundation documents for Him.

I recall broaching this subject with a nice elderly Jehova's Witness that used to come by of a Wednesday morning. "Why is it that God seems to change from the Old Testament 'full of Wrath' to the New Testament 'full of Love', then at the last chapter, back to 'full of Wrath' again?"

I forget the word for word response, although it must have been some classic Orwellian double-speak, double-think, 'We cannot know the mind of God' stuff. What else could it have been?

But what kind of rebuttal or apology can we expect from anyone on this logical, defining argument against the God of the Bible, that He cannot possibly be all-loving and wrathful?

Seems to me that 'you'd' have to back into it and spill a cartload of bullshit on it right away and THEN 'speak to it' as if it had already been defeated, thus:-

"Well, of course, you WOULD say this kind of thing, being that you have obviously turned away from God, accepted 'the god of this World' as your leader, allowing you to continue sinning in your lustful, cheating, stealing, perjurous ways!"

This may be preceded with, "You seem like a very insightful and intelligent person but.."

I think that perhaps this kind of 'treatment' is to demonstrate how the apologist 'can be' both loving (patronizing actually) and wrathful(disdainful actually) at the same time, 'proving', in a way that the anger/love thing is at least possible? (Just throwing that out there.)

This paradoxical idea that a being can be all-loving yet wrathful(all-wrathful?) is so obviously bullshit that one cannot even begin to demonstrate it, not for the historical lack of trying on Jews, Christians and Muslims parts, without coming across as batshit insane!

Biblically, "I LOVE you! And if I don't feel the love coming back to me in the required way(which you may or may not know), I'll have my 'people' exterminate your 'people'!"

Do you feel compelled to look off into the 'distance of your mind' and say something like, "One cannot know the mind of God."?

Well, do ya... punk?

Rum powered rant!

Thought I had a few things. Oh yea, I think that it's funny how atheists imagine that life's only reason is to produce more life, and that devout Catholics/pro-lifers seem to want to take that reason 'beyond' reason while denying the reasonableness of that reasoning.

Ummm.. a good apologist is a wordsmith. "Why is material reality any less dogmatic than religious dogma?"

We say, "You're just making shite up!", and they reply, "Isn't what you think you know just 'made up shite' too?"

Well, of course language is a 'made up' thing and we need to express material reality in language, and the good apologist knows that there's no getting around this, so he(or she) is going to use this against us. "Material reality plus(plus spirituality) is shite you say? Well material reality is a cartload of shite, isn't it?"

Well, no. There is a consensus among us that material reality is 'real' to even have the conversation!

"Ahh, but among the majority of people there is a consensus that spirituality is real too!"

But the majority of people, seems to me, are looking for an 'Easy button' when it comes to questions like, "Why are we here?", or, "Why am I here?", or, "Why is here, here?", so they would tend to jump on the "Easy button" bandwagon rather than go on the "Hamster-wheel" of infinite regress that atheists get dragged onto by well meaning(?) or, at least, well versed apologists.

If atheists are those willing to go against the religious flow and theists are those wafting the flow along, the apologist would be those fighting turbulence and blockage caused by atheists and even non-theists.

I think that the flow needs impetus and that impetus comes from the desire to live forever. But that can't be the end of it surely? "Jesus saves, thank you very much, see you in the next life, have a good one!"

No, it can't be that because that wouldn't take up a half-hour class for one school semester in grade school for everyone, never mind four years of college for the theology inclined!

No, what I think is going on is the same kind of force that drives bubbles and crashes in economies, swings of public opinion to the left or right in politics and that kind of thing.

While everyone is claiming to WANT a stable predictable economy and a 'central' government, economies and governments just don't work like that. Same with religion. It isn't WORKING if it's not stirring up crises, dragons to slay, enemies to crush, reasons to be victorious.

Much like the weather, which we wouldn't notice if it weren't changing all the time, we wouldn't notice the economy(or care about it) if it were stable and we wouldn't notice(or care) who is in government if there weren't constant crises(real or imagined), we wouldn't notice religion unless there were the controversy and the demonizing and the hate-mongering and the unsolvable, immovable lines drawn in the sand which, if you're not on my side then you are just some sub-human-monkey's-uncle-that's-all.

They don't want us to stop and think, "What is this drivel that they want us to care about now?", no. They want to keep juggling them three balls constantly, politics, economy and religion, 'cos there's nothing else.

"They're trying to steal Christmas from us!"
I suppose when it's down to that, atheists are supposed to say, "Dear Lord help us!", and then they can say, "I knew that you believed all the time, I knew it!"

Scripts

It popped into my head that we're all, more or less running off scripts. Depending on your age and circumstance your response to any given situation is predictable.

I was busy with 'morning' and realized that I'd hoed this row before and will no doubt do it again and it's pretty much scripted in our minds our roles, where we ought to be at a given time etc.

If I put some thought into it, I could give a 'rendition' of what the regular commenters on this blog are going to say in response, given that we've all come to know each other's scripts.

I wonder if Pliny has anything interesting to say about artificial intelligence and if an intelligent machine would need to follow 'mental' scripts as we do? I am absolutely positive that he does, it'll be very interesting and it'll call into question the nature of intelligencc itself!

Stacy is going to say, "Hmmm.. you made me think again! (secretly:- Darn you!) ((just kiddin' Stacy!)

I could make up stuff for other commenters like a comedian making up 'Bushisms', but to get to my point, I'm thinking that the ladies realise how scripted and self-scripted our lives are a lot better then men do.

It's just 'there' though and not examined for what it is, more used as a tool, a way of being 'mysterious' and such. I think, where a guy might be trying to make a point, the girl is trying to find out which script is being played, perhaps trying to cut off scripts that she doesn't like, off at the pass, perhaps trying to guide the guy into a script in which he is 'out of his league', that kind of thing.

Brian, with his big brain 'theory', seems to be a script to me. I play my role as the total skeptic and he dodges and weaves, seemingly determined to keep pushing the idea that there's more meaning to this universe than we (want to?) think.

I know that there's been books written about this, "What do you say after, "Hello!"?", which brings up, I wonder what our scripts are about the 'question of scripts'?

Does it interfere with our notion of free-will?
How much scripting is involved with religion?
Is something necessarilly less 'free' if it is TOTALLY scripted?
Isn't a job just a physical manifestation of mental scripting?

Now I can imagine some of you(you know who you are) thinking, "This is totally, totally Ian! That last post was odd, but I 'get' this one!"

Life as a virtual business

Okay, I don't know you guys. I mean I know what you think of the stuff I write here and a bit about your senses of humor and that kind of thing, but I don't know what you do, mostly. (Pliny is a doctor, he writes doctory stuff)

Anyway, what I want to do is explain my idea and see if,

a) you give a poop
b)you have any one time suggestions
c)you'd like to do some contributing
d) add a 'd'?

Here goes. We hear about people making money on the 'net all the time with sites they create, basically selling information, the 'best' thing to sell actually. It's practically like getting people to throw money at you.

Then there are the sites which get advertisers to throw money at you for entertaining people or informing folk. (or is that 'informing people or entertaining folk?(I get 'folk' and 'people' mixed up all the time.))

It all good, either way the money goes 'towards' you, which is a plus, no?

Okay so, "Make a site."(step one) Well it's a virtual step one now, in our minds, right?

Step two is making the site about 'something' interesting to attract 'lookers'.

This is all very basic and I'm sure that it's a 'row' that's been 'hoed' to death, so this part is like the set up steps, and if I'm missing anything and you think it's important you could suggest improvements to this part.

There are several 'aspects' to this proposed site. (or modules if you prefer), the first being 'your life'.

Let's say we have some kind of questionaire asking people what they want, perhaps to lose weight or to organize their affairs better, essentially to get their 'shit' together.

They'd do the questionaire, perhaps find out crap about themselves that they'd like to, let's say, "minimize" and things that they want to bring out in themselves. We could let people log in and find out how they're doing towards self-regulation.(even coming(going) to a site to write out what you had to eat that day(if you're on a 'get fit' thingy) would lend focus to their purported aims, right?

(of course, not just losing weight, but maybe quitting smoking or getting out of debt or .. (suggestions?)

Another module might be virtual modelling of a proposed business. Let's say that you want to start a business. You split the business down into components. Buying the parts that you intend to add value to (that's what a business does, right?), then a 'miracle' happens, then selling the product that you dreamed would make you a profit.

Now I don't mean the usual 'small business tutorial' thing. They want to explain stuff like, "Is your business a limited partnership or an Evil Dick Cheney type conglomerate, and they get way into drivel like this, practically begging you to go to sleep or find an online 'Asteroids' game to play.

The point would be to make the title, "Life as a virtual business." mean that in as many ways as possible, and modularizing(if that's a word) everything, from 'givens'(You ARE breathing) to the processes, (You took that 'one-a-day' vitamin, right?), to summaries(You blithering idiot, keep this up and you're gonna DIE very shortly!(no more plans for you))

I think that there are some business-wise tips and tricks that might benefit most people thinking of their lives AS businesses.(the business of living)

Comment with suggestions, modifications, models to emulate, models to avoid(praying to be thin through a mouthful of cheese-cake), add-ons, add-ins, start-ups, details or generalizations.

Basically, what I'm saying is that if you don't know the rules, you're gonna lose the game, and 'theeee' game seems to be a mish-mash of politics/business/religion and manipulating peoples' ideas concerning that mish-mash.

Knowledge dispels fear.

(please, no comments like, "I read as far as 'X', it was boring, could you summarize so I can get some 'closure' and dismiss the summary as the drivel it surely is?")

Words

I'd like to continue the theme of 'words' here.(maybe I'll get a little more agreement from a certain 'oneblood', who shall remain nameless)

We can see how easy it is to use words to trick each other by using some examples of how religious people trick themselves.

Sometimes it will be a lack of words that is the trickery, an overgeneralzation, meant only to make the comment concise, taken at precise value to undermine the entire meaning of the comment in contention.

Case in point. Someone might go ahead and say, "You're so full of it Ian, I'm a Christian and I NEVER trick others with words or trick myself with words, EVER!" This in itself is a favourite trick of debaters(debators? Looks wrong.), someone makes a general statement and the opposer points to him/herself as an example of how that general statement is false.

Seems we have to be very, very careful to say, some, or , a lot of, but even then, we might expect denial from someone trying to take the legs out from under an argument or point.

The word 'supernatural', I think is misleadin, to say the least, when it is combined with the notion that God created everything. Seems fairly obvious to me that anyone(everyone?) using the argument that God created everything, is dismissing the notion of 'natural' as opposed to 'supernatural' all together, just without 'saying so'.

To say that God created everything out of nothing or out of God-stuff, is to say that everything STILL IS made of God-stuff and we just call that particular God-stuff 'natural' to differentiate it, somehow, from other 'nothing' or 'God-stuff' that hasn't been 'transformed' by God to be 'the world around us'(I guess).

The 'design' argument is implied, and put forward as indisputable, right off the bat, as if THAT is any kind of fair argument to make.

As in, "God made everything. You can see, feel and touch everything. Therefore you must believe that God made everything."

But, of course there MUST be a certain percentage of devout, faithful believers 'out there' who can see that this is a circular argument and therefore no argument at all.

Then there's the other twist that the word 'natural' can simply mean, 'not man-made' which can be used to dither over, because on the one hand that makes all the materials of a man made object still natural, and it's just the manipulation OF these objects, BY people, somehow 'artificial', which we can STILL use as examples of 'creation', and on the other hand a completely DIFFERENT process, supposedly used by God to create everything out of 'nothing' or 'God-stuff'.

We can go on and on, spiraling backwards never admitting that we are just waffling. For example:-

"God made us those beautiful mountains. When I look at them they make me feel so spiritual."

But the mountains are made by the natural process of erosion.

"Why, God invented erosion!"

STFU! Wind and rain, snow and ice act on rock to make the mountains just like that, nothing to do with anything supernatural at all!

"But, God made the wind and the rain, the snow and the ice!"

Rubbish, the wind and rain etc. are caused by the Sun warming the planet during the day and the seasons etc.

"But God made the Sun to shine down on the Earth!"

Etc.

etc.

But this is just a word-game, trickery. If your premise is that, 'God did it!", followed by any argument which concludes that, "God did it!", that's no argument at all.

Of course anyone pointing this out to a believer is likely to be stepped along to the next 'argument' in this chain of 'non-argument', "But you need to have faith!"

Straight out of one set of ill-defined words, and on to the next, keeping in mind that the first 'argument' is taken to be at least a 'draw', if not in fact a 'win' for the religious side, and can be refered back to at any convenient time.