Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
with solder and jumper-wires :-)

On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)

I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.

An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
communication between the widely separated parallel computational units,
but what do I know compared to the Doctor.

On 10/21/21 00:27, Pancho wrote:
> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>
> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.
>
> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
> communication between the widely separated parallel computational units,
> but what do I know compared to the Doctor.

The Time Lords conceal there most advanced technology behind a screen
of obsolescence. But they also know what impresses humans in
the era they recruit from.

"Human brain computational power" is used to impress us with our
brain power. And a Tardis has the equivalent of a erratic Time Lord's
brain plus more storage. This is an entertainment series not a factual
presentation.

"Gordian Protocol" by Weber and Holo is a rip-roaring fantasy
based on the idea the human race last to the 30th Century and masters
time travel based on an incorrect TOE. Because of the errors in their
TOE they are splitting the timeline which gets all messed up. Hitler
Must be saved from a 1940 assassination attempt which succeeded and
led to the Great Eastern War destroying the USSR. But they had
back accidents with AI now restricted and with nano-machines used
as deadly weapons. Oh and it is a book.

bliss - lost in spacetime and quantal interactions on a macroscopic
scale.

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 10/21/21 3:27 AM, Pancho wrote:
> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>
> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.

Probably including the suburbs too ...

Thing is, nobody knew The Trick then, and
still don't. "Consciousness" or even a really
good emulation is STILL well beyond the horizon.

There's some kind of quasi-chaotic thing that
creates "consciousness", a weird pattern. We
don't seem very close to finding it.

Emulating it in hard/soft-ware even further.

There are lots of humans with hydrocephalic brain
damage - not much cortex left - who STILL have average
or even superior IQ. This does suggest "pattern"
and "connections" over pure neuron numbers.

A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
"self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
property. I don't think the writers were so
far off.

Never diss emergent properties of complex systems.

> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
> communication between the widely separated parallel computational units,
> but what do I know compared to the Doctor.

The data transmission issue IS real.

The old Cray supercomputers, "These ARE the small
ones", were hand-wired for the fastest point-2-point
data transmission. It was an issue even way back then.
The speed of electricity, even light, was an issue 30
years ago. We kinda got around it by packing more and
more onto single multi-cpu chips. Short xmission
distances. But, there are limits ...

Neurons are SLOW, very slow, compared to electronics.
Yet they manage to produce "self", "self-awareness".
in a sub-cubic-foot unit. It's the pattern they work
upon that's important.

To sum it up, the hardware is probably capable of
"self" even now, or in the near future. But "The
Trick" eludes us.

On 10/21/21 11:04 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 10/21/21 00:27, Pancho wrote:
>> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>>
>> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
>> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.
>>
>> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
>> communication between the widely separated parallel computational
>> units, but what do I know compared to the Doctor.
>
>     The Time Lords conceal there most advanced technology behind a
> screen of obsolescence.  But they also know what impresses humans in
> the era they recruit from.
>
>     "Human brain computational power" is used to impress us with our
> brain power. And a Tardis has the equivalent of a erratic Time Lord's
> brain plus more storage.  This is an entertainment series not a factual
> presentation.
>
>     "Gordian Protocol" by Weber and Holo is a rip-roaring fantasy
> based on the idea the human race last to the 30th Century and masters
> time travel based on an incorrect TOE.  Because of the errors in their
> TOE they are splitting the timeline which gets all messed up.  Hitler
> Must be saved from a 1940 assassination attempt which succeeded and
> led to the Great Eastern War destroying the USSR.  But they had
> back accidents with AI now restricted and with nano-machines used
> as deadly weapons. Oh and it is a book.
>
>
> bliss - lost in spacetime and quantal interactions on a macroscopic
> scale.
>

"Dr. Who" was and is pure fiction ... albeit usually
contaminated with the latest science facts.

I came in on the back edge of those big boxes and
spinney tape drives. Ever had to thread one of those
tape drives, punched/fed a paper tape, dropped your
wunnerful FORTRAN programs punch-cards, actually
used a TTY terminal ? I have.

I'm getting near retirement. For "fun" I've migrated
a few indespensible utility programs to COBOL and
FORTRAN and PASCAL and K&R 'c'. I do like Pascal ...
and it lives on in Delphi and Lazarus/FPC. If it needs
a nice GUI like right now, it's Delphi/Lazarus. If it
needs to be portable, Lazarus absolutely. GTK and such,
HORRIBLE by comparison - ten times the work and much
more version-hostage. The newbies will just have to
suck up a dose of The Past :-)

As for the premise of "Dr. Who" ... it's rather
interesting really. Paradox resolution was really
not dealt with because it'd usually ruin the stories.
In any case, those old old series bring back some
memories about Tech.

Now if you want really CRAP science, view the MARVEL
action movies. Newton is spinning in his grave. Sorry,
but if you're in a suit of armor and slammed up against
a wall at hundreds of feet per second you're SPAM IN
THE CAN laddies ... oh, and super-beings CANNOT lift
a tank .. the leverage equation does NOT work. :-)

One of my favorite, abeit obscure, movies is
"Colossus, The Forbin Project". It's about two
military supercomputers that force everyone to
provide interconnection - and the result is
enough IQ to take over the world Big Time.
Not sure how 70's tech would create AI, but ...

Anyway, it was the Clarke/Minsky vision at
the time.

Minsky, BTW, USED to post to Usenet, back when
it was respectable. Lots of Top People did.
And then ...

On 28/10/2021 06:11, 1p166 wrote:
> Never diss emergent properties of complex systems.

Well indeed, Of course as everybody knows, the world *as we know it* is
an emergent property of consciousness...

I trump your Cartesian Realism with Transcendental Idealism!

--
"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow witted
man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest
thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly
persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid
before him."

- Leo Tolstoy

On 28/10/2021 07:08, 1p166 wrote:
> Minsky, BTW, USED to post to Usenet, back when
>   it was respectable. Lots of Top People did.
>   And then ...

....they all moved to facebook...

--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone

On 28/10/2021 06:11, 1p166 wrote:

>
>   A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
>   about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
>   quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
>   few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
>   that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
>   "self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
>   property. I don't think the writers were so
>   far off.
>

Yep it was called Humans, the series touched on the watershed moment of
android development, the singularity...

The point where androids will be able to satisfy the "Pancho" test. The
test will be passed test if a standard examiner is unable to tell if he
has shagged a real woman or an android.

FWIW the series was originally Swedish "Real Humans". The first series
was good, but went rapidly downhill afterwards.

On 28/10/2021 14:25, Pancho wrote:

>
> The point where androids will be able to satisfy the "Pancho" test. The
> test will be passed test if a standard examiner is unable to tell if he
> has shagged a real woman or an android.

My ex passed that years before I left her...

--
"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."

On 10/27/21 22:11, 1p166 wrote:
> On 10/21/21 3:27 AM, Pancho wrote:
>> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>>
>> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
>> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.
>
>   Probably including the suburbs too ...
>
>   Thing is, nobody knew The Trick then, and
>   still don't. "Consciousness" or even a really
>   good emulation is STILL well beyond the horizon.
>
>   There's some kind of quasi-chaotic thing that
>   creates "consciousness", a weird pattern. We
>   don't seem very close to finding it.

We are unable to examine the wetware while it is
functioning, except in rare circumstances such as brain
surgery then only get surface expressions so that we know
one lobe is connected to vocalization and another to
movement of one limb or the other. We can figure out
where memory resides but no the exact storage methods.

>
>   Emulating it in hard/soft-ware even further.
>
>   There are lots of humans with hydrocephalic brain
>   damage - not much cortex left - who STILL have average
>   or even superior IQ. This does suggest "pattern"
>   and "connections" over pure neuron numbers.

Absolutely and why? More neurons in the autonomic
portion on your CNS than anywhere else so subcubic foot may
not apply. I was astounded to learn of the people with hardly
any brain left and actually met online a person with such
damage with lots of symptoms but whho managed to work for a
living.
But the development of self and self awareness
is doubtless of survival value as is the development of
the enlarged brain and the specialised part like the
neo-cortex. However equally important I am sure is the
input from the senses in the rest of the body.

But maybe it lies in the unreliabily of the
mechanisms which maintain and edit memories so that
we recall our failures with great precision but our
successes are usually and in memory inflated.

>
>   A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
>   about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
>   quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
>   few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
>   that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
>   "self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
>   property. I don't think the writers were so
>   far off.
>
>   Never diss emergent properties of complex systems.

Never doubt it. Most of my software is smarter than
me in some senses but no hardware ever hit it own power on
button.
>
>> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
>> communication between the widely separated parallel computational
>> units, but what do I know compared to the Doctor.

Quite a bit but you are confined to the moment and to the 4 dimen
>
>   The data transmission issue IS real.
>
>   The old Cray supercomputers, "These ARE the small
>   ones", were hand-wired for the fastest point-2-point
>   data transmission. It was an issue even way back then.
>   The speed of electricity, even light, was an issue 30
>   years ago. We kinda got around it by packing more and
>   more onto single multi-cpu chips. Short xmission
>   distances. But, there are limits ...
>
>   Neurons are SLOW, very slow, compared to electronics.
>   Yet they manage to produce "self", "self-awareness".
>   in a sub-cubic-foot unit. It's the pattern they work
>   upon that's important.
>
>   To sum it up, the hardware is probably capable of
>   "self" even now, or in the near future. But "The
>   Trick" eludes us.

Electronic hardware might have enough computing
power but it lacks sensory input affording survival value and
all the millions of years of refinement of the integrated
body and mind by the genus homo, all for survival and reproduction.
Including the development of simple technologies such as fire
which permitted cooking which permitted the size of the jaw
to decrease and the size of the cranium to enlarge.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 10/28/21 9:25 AM, Pancho wrote:
> On 28/10/2021 06:11, 1p166 wrote:
>
>>
>>    A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
>>    about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
>>    quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
>>    few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
>>    that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
>>    "self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
>>    property. I don't think the writers were so
>>    far off.
>>
>
> Yep it was called Humans, the series touched on the watershed moment of
> android development, the singularity...
>
> The point where androids will be able to satisfy the "Pancho" test. The
> test will be passed test if a standard examiner is unable to tell if he
> has shagged a real woman or an android.
>
> FWIW the series was originally Swedish "Real Humans". The first series
> was good, but went rapidly downhill afterwards.

Ah yes, "Humans" ... but I think it died after the
second season. IMHO it'd done all it could do with
that particular premise.

Never saw the Swedish version.

But the idea that "sentience", "personhood", was
less pure hardware than it was a way of USING
said hardware ... a pattern, a meme ... struck
a chord. There's something to that.

I mentioned hydrocephalic children for a reason.
Some have surprisingly little grey matter left.
Their scans reveal devastation, what's left of
their cortexes is more on the scale of chimps.
Yet, many attained normal+ capabilities. This
points to an organizational/connectional key,
beyond mere hardware.

There are several beasties with bigger brains than
ours - but they just don't have "it". Whatever "it"
is seems to have showed up around the time of Homo
Hablis. H.Sapiens ... maybe not so much that we were
generally intellectually superior, but just "badder"
than the competitors. Quick, aggressive, somewhat
xenophobic - we dominated the "trolls" and "ogres"
and such in the end. Resistance is futile. Then we
turned on each other ... which also seems to be a
significant evolutionary prompter. Having to outwit
your own - or else - that's evolutionary pressure.

ANYway ... if we can find "it", that pattern, real
AI might be possible with a lot less hardware than
we currently envision.

On 10/21/21 11:04 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 10/21/21 00:27, Pancho wrote:
>> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>>
>> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
>> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.
>>
>> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
>> communication between the widely separated parallel computational
>> units, but what do I know compared to the Doctor.
>
>     The Time Lords conceal there most advanced technology behind a
> screen of obsolescence.  But they also know what impresses humans in
> the era they recruit from.
>
>     "Human brain computational power" is used to impress us with our
> brain power. And a Tardis has the equivalent of a erratic Time Lord's
> brain plus more storage.  This is an entertainment series not a factual
> presentation.

Duh ....

>     "Gordian Protocol" by Weber and Holo is a rip-roaring fantasy
> based on the idea the human race last to the 30th Century and masters
> time travel based on an incorrect TOE.  Because of the errors in their
> TOE they are splitting the timeline which gets all messed up.  Hitler
> Must be saved from a 1940 assassination attempt which succeeded and
> led to the Great Eastern War destroying the USSR.  But they had
> back accidents with AI now restricted and with nano-machines used
> as deadly weapons. Oh and it is a book.
>
>
> bliss - lost in spacetime and quantal interactions on a macroscopic
> scale.
>

Even time-travel fiction reveals serious problems.
Time-travel FACT would be much worse.

Fortunately, it doesn't look like time travel can
be realized in the real world.

On 10/28/21 11:15 AM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
> On 10/27/21 22:11, 1p166 wrote:
>> On 10/21/21 3:27 AM, Pancho wrote:
>>> On 21/10/2021 05:06, 1p166 wrote:
>>>> Ah ... a Dr. Who #3 ... computers with lots of big
>>>> spinney tape drives and circuits big enough to fix
>>>> with solder and jumper-wires  :-)
>>>
>>> I learnt, circa #3, that a computer with computational intelligence
>>> comparable to a human brain would be the size of London.
>>
>>    Probably including the suburbs too ...
>>
>>    Thing is, nobody knew The Trick then, and
>>    still don't. "Consciousness" or even a really
>>    good emulation is STILL well beyond the horizon.
>>
>>    There's some kind of quasi-chaotic thing that
>>    creates "consciousness", a weird pattern. We
>>    don't seem very close to finding it.
>
>     We are unable to examine the wetware while it is
> functioning, except in rare circumstances such as brain
> surgery then only get surface expressions so that we know
> one lobe is connected to vocalization and another to
> movement of one limb or the other.  We can figure out
> where memory resides but no the exact storage methods.

In part it's the "quantum problem" ... all ways of
observing the system in action ALTER the system.
It's a perpetually moving target.

>>
>>    Emulating it in hard/soft-ware even further.
>>
>>    There are lots of humans with hydrocephalic brain
>>    damage - not much cortex left - who STILL have average
>>    or even superior IQ. This does suggest "pattern"
>>    and "connections" over pure neuron numbers.
>
>     Absolutely and why?  More neurons in the autonomic
> portion on your CNS than anywhere else so subcubic foot may
> not apply.  I was astounded to learn of the people with hardly
> any brain left and actually met online a person with such
> damage with lots of symptoms but whho managed to work for a
> living.

Clearly you need "enough" neurons. But how they all
connect, the patterns, are the all-important feature.
Even a city sized computer, lacking "it", the proper
organizational meme, wouldn't achieve "personhood".

>     But the development of self and self awareness
> is doubtless of survival value as is the development of
> the enlarged brain and the specialised part like the
> neo-cortex.  However equally important I am sure is the
> input from the senses in the rest of the body.
>
>     But maybe it lies in the unreliabily of the
> mechanisms which maintain and edit memories so that
> we recall our failures with great precision but our
> successes are usually and in memory inflated.
>
>>
>>    A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
>>    about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
>>    quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
>>    few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
>>    that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
>>    "self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
>>    property. I don't think the writers were so
>>    far off.
>>
>>    Never diss emergent properties of complex systems.
>
>     Never doubt it.  Most of my software is smarter than
> me in some senses but no hardware ever hit it own power on
> button.

Oh, THAT's easily fixed. :-)

>>> An older me would figure they would have had a serious problem with
>>> communication between the widely separated parallel computational
>>> units, but what do I know compared to the Doctor.
>
>     Quite a bit but you are confined to the moment and to the 4 dimen
>>
>>    The data transmission issue IS real.
>>
>>    The old Cray supercomputers, "These ARE the small
>>    ones", were hand-wired for the fastest point-2-point
>>    data transmission. It was an issue even way back then.
>>    The speed of electricity, even light, was an issue 30
>>    years ago. We kinda got around it by packing more and
>>    more onto single multi-cpu chips. Short xmission
>>    distances. But, there are limits ...
>>
>>    Neurons are SLOW, very slow, compared to electronics.
>>    Yet they manage to produce "self", "self-awareness".
>>    in a sub-cubic-foot unit. It's the pattern they work
>>    upon that's important.
>>
>>    To sum it up, the hardware is probably capable of
>>    "self" even now, or in the near future. But "The
>>    Trick" eludes us.
>
>     Electronic hardware might have enough computing
> power but it lacks sensory input affording survival value and
> all the millions of years of refinement of the integrated
> body and mind by the genus homo, all for survival and reproduction.
> Including the development of simple technologies such as fire
> which permitted cooking which permitted the size of the jaw
> to decrease and the size of the cranium to enlarge.

You can arrange for the "sensory input" both in virtual
emulations or real-world-walking-around apps.

The trick is "it" ... the way to organize thinking to
achieve "personhood". We don't know what "it" is. If
we did, proper AI could surely be achieved with a lot
less hardware than we currently believe.

The current approaches to AI involve emulating neural
networks. It does bear some fruit - IF you can bring
enough hardware and speed into the equation. The thing
is that electronic circuits are NOT organic brain tissue.
Trying to do it "our way" may not be the best approach.
Organics and electronics each have their own set of
strengths and weaknesses. Maybe doing it "our way" is
a big WASTE of cycles ?

On 29/10/2021 06:36, 1p166 wrote:
> The trick is "it" ... the way to organize thinking to
>   achieve "personhood". We don't know what "it" is. If
>   we did, proper AI could surely be achieved with a lot
>   less hardware than we currently believe.

Well we do. Or some people do.

At some point in childhood intelligence organises sensory data into a
model, that includes a self, in a real (physical) world. That model is
reinforced through parents etc until people like you think that they
have actually emerged into 'the real world' and start to explain their
awareness of it, on terms of its physical nature!

Circular argument.

Awareness itself implies an entity that is aware, and something other
than itself it becomes aware of. And some invisible intangible entity
that makes it all happen.

Cf Schopenhauer 'The world as Will, and Representation'.

Personhood emerges as half of the pair of the 'observer' and the
'observed' - the nature of the world you end up perceiving is the nature
of the human being that observes it.

The real question, is there anything beyond that that would allow you to
choose what person you are, and hence subtly alter the nature of the
world you perceive?

Many would assert that there is, and that is what 'it' is...

--
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit
atrocities.”

― Voltaire, Questions sur les Miracles à M. Claparede, Professeur de
Théologie à Genève, par un Proposant: Ou Extrait de Diverses Lettres de
M. de Voltaire

On 10/28/21 22:07, 1p166 wrote:
> On 10/28/21 9:25 AM, Pancho wrote:
>> On 28/10/2021 06:11, 1p166 wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>    A few years ago there was a Brit sci-fi series
>>>    about sophisticated, but ultimately mindless,
>>>    quality androids. Their inventor impressed a
>>>    few with a sort of fractal thought pattern
>>>    that produced intelligence, "consciousness",
>>>    "self-awareness", "real people", as an emergent
>>>    property. I don't think the writers were so
>>>    far off.
>>>
>>
>> Yep it was called Humans, the series touched on the watershed moment
>> of android development, the singularity...
>>
>> The point where androids will be able to satisfy the "Pancho" test.
>> The test will be passed test if a standard examiner is unable to tell
>> if he has shagged a real woman or an android.
>>
>> FWIW the series was originally Swedish "Real Humans". The first series
>> was good, but went rapidly downhill afterwards.
>
>   Ah yes, "Humans" ... but I think it died after the
>   second season. IMHO it'd done all it could do with
>   that particular premise.
>
>   Never saw the Swedish version.
>
>   But the idea that "sentience", "personhood", was
>   less pure hardware than it was a way of USING
>   said hardware ... a pattern, a meme ... struck
>   a chord. There's something to that.
>
>   I mentioned hydrocephalic children for a reason.
>   Some have surprisingly little grey matter left.
>   Their scans reveal devastation, what's left of
>   their cortexes is more on the scale of chimps.
>   Yet, many attained normal+ capabilities. This
>   points to an organizational/connectional key,
>   beyond mere hardware.
>
>   There are several beasties with bigger brains than
>   ours - but they just don't have "it". Whatever "it"
>   is seems to have showed up around the time of Homo
>   Hablis. H.Sapiens ... maybe not so much that we were
>   generally intellectually superior, but just "badder"
>   than the competitors. Quick, aggressive, somewhat
>   xenophobic -  we dominated the "trolls" and "ogres"
>   and such in the end. Resistance is futile. Then we
>   turned on each other ... which also seems to be a
>   significant evolutionary prompter. Having to outwit
>   your own - or else - that's evolutionary pressure.

We are unable to discuss the curious matter of "personhood"
with creatures on this planet with larger brains due to disparate
means of communnication, In an Antarctic dive the diver was
adopted by a Leopard seal which may have seen it as an injured
member of the young of its own species. We have heard many tales
of dolphins helping people who fall into waters and as well tales
of dolphine raping their own species using gang tactics and
seemingly attempting seduction of human females,
So don't dismiss the possibily of self-hood existing
in the so-called lower animals. I think that some self-awareness
is a survival mechanism as are these paragraphs.

And we do a lot with the neurons in the autonomic
nervous system which the the brain connection to the mostly
"unconscious" functions which keep us more or less "alive".
>
>   ANYway ... if we can find "it", that pattern, real
>   AI might be possible with a lot less hardware than
>   we currently envision.

bliss - 'Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.' After all
here I am...
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 2021-10-28, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 28/10/2021 07:08, 1p166 wrote:
>
>> Minsky, BTW, USED to post to Usenet, back when
>>   it was respectable. Lots of Top People did.
>>   And then ...
>
> ...they all moved to facebook...

I was trying to think of a clever comeback but you
beat me to it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

On 2021-10-29, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 29/10/2021 06:36, 1p166 wrote:
>
>> The trick is "it" ... the way to organize thinking to
>>   achieve "personhood". We don't know what "it" is. If
>>   we did, proper AI could surely be achieved with a lot
>>   less hardware than we currently believe.
>
> Well we do. Or some people do.
>
> At some point in childhood intelligence organises sensory data into a
> model, that includes a self, in a real (physical) world. That model is
> reinforced through parents etc until people like you think that they
> have actually emerged into 'the real world' and start to explain their
> awareness of it, on terms of its physical nature!

Unfortunately, many people's models are seriously warped.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

On 2021-10-29, 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote:

> Fortunately, it doesn't look like time travel can
> be realized in the real world.

Too bad. I'd love go to back and see to it that
Bill Gates' parents never met.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

On 10/29/21 09:52, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-10-29, 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote:
>
>> Fortunately, it doesn't look like time travel can
>> be realized in the real world.
>
> Too bad. I'd love go to back and see to it that
> Bill Gates' parents never met.

Without MS-DOS and Windows we might not have
the x86 line with all its advances and multiple cores
to play with as well as all its sneaky Minux
implementation.

Time Travel by any means in the 21st century is
merely entertainment but by the 30th century it may be
dangerous reality. I am not going to worry about it but
The Gordian Protocol was too good a story to miss.

bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

On 2021-10-29, Bobbie Sellers <bliss@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> On 10/29/21 09:52, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> On 2021-10-29, 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Fortunately, it doesn't look like time travel can
>>> be realized in the real world.
>>
>> Too bad. I'd love go to back and see to it that
>> Bill Gates' parents never met.
>
> Without MS-DOS and Windows we might not have
> the x86 line with all its advances and multiple cores
> to play with as well as all its sneaky Minux
> implementation.

Yeah, we'd probably have had to put up with the 68000 line.
<crocodile tears>

And without MS-DOS and Windows we might have gotten some
real work done rather than spending our time working around
all their warts.

> Time Travel by any means in the 21st century is
> merely entertainment but by the 30th century it may be
> dangerous reality. I am not going to worry about it but
> The Gordian Protocol was too good a story to miss.

My favourite time-travel warning story is
_The Brooklyn Project_ by William Tenn.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin

On 10/29/21 12:52 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-10-29, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 29/10/2021 06:36, 1p166 wrote:
>>
>>> The trick is "it" ... the way to organize thinking to
>>>   achieve "personhood". We don't know what "it" is. If
>>>   we did, proper AI could surely be achieved with a lot
>>>   less hardware than we currently believe.
>>
>> Well we do. Or some people do.
>>
>> At some point in childhood intelligence organises sensory data into a
>> model, that includes a self, in a real (physical) world. That model is
>> reinforced through parents etc until people like you think that they
>> have actually emerged into 'the real world' and start to explain their
>> awareness of it, on terms of its physical nature!
>
> Unfortunately, many people's models are seriously warped.

Agreed. "It" is NOT going to be easy, NOT anything
derived by simple models. Darwin (eventually) did
it - but only after 4 billion years, and sort of
by accident. Pea-brained is the natural norm,
JUST enough to find the next thing to eat.

Back in the day, Minsky was predicting proper AI
was imminent. In Society Of Mind he went on and
on about how super-simple circuits could do IF/THEN
logical evaluations. What he DIDN'T consider was
the petabytes of crap needed to prep the data for
that final IF/THEN circuit. The HAL-9000 was a
product of Minski's optimism. Sorry, many decades
later and nothing even CLOSE.

Marv USED to post on Usenet ... before it became
disrespectable .....

Anyway, I strongly intuit that "It" is out there.
Once you have the necessary volume of hardware the
trick is how to organize it to produce the desired
effect. Nature offers some clues, but perhaps the
best way might not to be emulating nature so closely,
making fake neural nets. Perhaps hardware as it is
offers different routes to a similar result ?

On 29/10/2021 17:39, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-10-28, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 28/10/2021 07:08, 1p166 wrote:
>>
>>> Minsky, BTW, USED to post to Usenet, back when
>>>   it was respectable. Lots of Top People did.
>>>   And then ...
>>
>> ...they all moved to facebook...
>
> I was trying to think of a clever comeback but you
> beat me to it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
>
Try both.

Old age is the time of final disillusionment, when all your idols have
feet of clay, and you aren't really sure what the point of worshipping
them in the first place was.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

Adolf Hitler

On 29/10/2021 17:52, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-10-29, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 29/10/2021 06:36, 1p166 wrote:
>>
>>> The trick is "it" ... the way to organize thinking to
>>>   achieve "personhood". We don't know what "it" is. If
>>>   we did, proper AI could surely be achieved with a lot
>>>   less hardware than we currently believe.
>>
>> Well we do. Or some people do.
>>
>> At some point in childhood intelligence organises sensory data into a
>> model, that includes a self, in a real (physical) world. That model is
>> reinforced through parents etc until people like you think that they
>> have actually emerged into 'the real world' and start to explain their
>> awareness of it, on terms of its physical nature!
>
> Unfortunately, many people's models are seriously warped.
>
Warped with respect to what?

A couple of decades inquiry into the matter shows that there is no way
to establish what the One True Model of Reality looks like. And those
that think they are in possession of it are no less deluded than anyone
else.

My conclusion is that *any* model will do, provided it is not so
dysfunctional as to result in death before procreation.

I.e. Darwin rules: The world we think we live in, is simply a view that
has developed over thousands of years in the struggle to survive. Hence
my support for conservatism. "It worked for me da, so it will probably
work for me"

Critical Rat Theory, which believes that rats in fact are superior, but
have been held back by white male dominated worldviews, is specious
because it doesn't matter if the laws by which we live were dreamed up
by a conman with a beard who was good at stone masonry, or handed down
by sympathetic aliens.

If it works, use it, is the old adage :-)

The only concession to 'warpage' I will allow, is that if people are
living miserably because they cling to beliefs that make them angry,
miserable, jealous and full of shame, well perhaps they should consider
abandoning the belief set and replacing it with something else, just as
lacking in truth content, but more palatable.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.

Adolf Hitler

On 30/10/2021 06:49, 1p166 wrote:
> Anyway, I strongly intuit that "It" is out there.
>   Once you have the necessary volume of hardware the
>   trick is how to organize it to produce the desired
>   effect. Nature offers some clues, but perhaps the
>   best way might not to be emulating nature so closely,
>   making fake neural nets. Perhaps hardware as it is
>   offers different routes to a similar result ?

Well it could be argued that that is simply and example of a seriously
warped worldview that thinks that software is an emergent property of
hardware.

When there is just as good a case for saying that human wise, the
hardware is an emergent property of the software.

And the so called 'material world' is simply a GUI that we have
*constructed* in order to make it easier to interface with 'whatever the
fuck it really is' (to paraphrase Kant)

Quantum physics not only does not refute this proposition, it actually
reinforces it.

--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "

Alan Sokal

On 29/10/2021 17:52, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2021-10-29, 1p166 <z24ba6.net> wrote:
>
>> Fortunately, it doesn't look like time travel can
>> be realized in the real world.
>
> Too bad. I'd love go to back and see to it that
> Bill Gates' parents never met.
>
And end up in a world run by IBM and Gary Kildall?

--
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social
conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the
windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.) "

Alan Sokal