cladking

It's so convenient to say infinity is real and then to extrapolate an infinity of worlds. In reality you can no more divide by zero than there is a world with no Lincoln. The reality is that we can only estimate the odds of an event within a few million orders of magnitude based on current knowledge and this means that real numbers like the odds of a specific atom in a specific place a hundred years out are far greater than our concept of infinity, at least to our ability to measure and predict. These are all metaphysical failures but it's not apparent because each sees the world in terms of beliefs and models. Need I even mention that this is no small consideration because it is the difference between an infinite universe or infinite universes and our virtually infintesimal knowledge? Models are OK when properly applied but they are never reality itself. Mathematics works OK when it's properly applied but it can't really be applied exactly in any circumstance. It can be applied within 99.999+% perfectly within our ability to measure and understand all the variables.

I could elaborate or explain post 17. EVERYTHING has antecedents or pre-existence. A baby can't be born without parents and a grain of sand doesn't emerge into reality full blown. Even the most subtle force requires highly complex and mostly unknowable precedents. If you see events and that which exists to be certainty (100% probability) then why can't anything be predicted in advance? Isn't our inability to predict the outcome of sub-atomic collisions always going to result in an inability to predict the future? What are the odds that my bagel has the exact cellular and chemical composition that it actually has? Could the farmer who first cultivated wheat predict where any specific molecule of a fraction of the grain originated? Perspective always affects what is seen. Metaphysics carefully excludes percieved reality like the nature or existence of a grain of sand but you look at it and then say not only that it exists but that the odds of its existence is a certainty. All of reality is preordained from your perspective. It is because it is because it is. Somehow it seems unlikely that if you didn't get the point of post 17 that this one will be any better. Perhaps you'll at least notice I answered the question this time.

I was merely pointing out that the infinity in which you believe extends in an infinite number of directions and their opposite directions as well. There are an infinite number of infinities and, no doubt, an infinite number of types of infinities. All of reality from this perspective is an infintesimal piece of something much larger. It's hardly surprising that such a universe originated from an infintesimal point. Meanwhile reality is so improbable that the odds against it are too large to really understand.

"I couldn't begin to estimate the odds against any event." You flipping a coin 10,240 times and logging the outcome to compare with statistical probability is in no way an "event". Indeed, I predict it will never become an event because for numerous reasons you'll never do it. In the real world coin tosses aren't entirely random anyway since there are factors that can confound the results such as that most coins are more aerodynamic when falling obverse down. This means the way the coin is flipped affects the results. Reality isn't determined by consensus. So who do you know who doesn't "believe" in infinity? Experiment shows lots of big numbers but no infinity. Avogadro can compute chemical reactions even as subtle as dissolving salt in the ocean but the numbers are always finite in the real world. Why use only counting numbers? You can square even the infinite number of numbers between 1 and 1.00000001 or between any two points no matter how close. You don't have to multiply a number by itself. There are no limits to the things you can do with math but there are severe limitations to what you can do in the real world. Despite the impossibility of getting any given pattern in the results of flipping a coin 10/ 10,240/ 10,240 times you will still unique pattern every time. Despite not knowing which butterfly in China caused it there will still be a storm in ten days. The storm is real. The butterfly is real. That numbers exist that extend infinitely with a one to one correspondance to a subset of itselt is not real. People can't seem to see the incredible complexity of reality because they are blinded by the concept that there are an infinite number of points between any two points. As the rules that govern this complexity are discovered many more orders of magnitude of complexity will be overlaid on it. But the number can never become infinite because everything exists and events still unfold.

You know the odds against tossing a coin 10 times and getting all heads are 1: 2 ^10 or one in 1024. We all know we're really going to get something like H/ T/ H/ H/ T/ H/ H/ T/ T/ H. What we don't really think about is that the odds against getting this are exactly 1: 1024 as well. Throw a coin about 10240 times and you'll see the proof of this. Reality isn't always pretty but it's always exceedingly improbable. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and New Orleans goes under water seven days later. A billion years later and two galaxies collide. This is the nature of reality. I couldn't begin to estimate the odds against any event. A ball rolls toward the edge of a table and it's safe to say it will end up on the floor but this is very short sighted thinking. It is short term and large scale. Try predicting something important like which butterfly in China you have to affect to save a city. Try predicting the effect of a reflection on the underside of a water lilly a million years later. Man doesn't know even the tiniest fraction enough to quantify the odds against the outcome of the universe within many trillions of orders of magnitude. Any other belief is mere hubris. How am I supposed toguess the odds against any given outcome? These are great questions though. These are questions we'd all do well to ponder. Such irony. Of course you're right on all counts. However, I aver that the reason science exists at all in any guise is to understand reality; nature itself. We carefully exclude the concept of reality because we are well aware that it is different for each of us. But the question remains whether "infinity" exists or not. It can't be shown by experiment yet it is widely believed anyway. Why do we believe in something that can't be shown to exist scientifically? Of course the answer is simple enough but it can't be shown logically, scientifically, or practically. The problem isn't "science" but rather our understanding of it. It is a metaphysical inconsistency as viewed from most perspectives. There are other perspectives equally logical and equally "scientific".

The problem with most so called skeptics isn't that they believe in evidence but that they believe in all the extrapolations and interpolations of that evidence. Reality exists within experimental results not in our models. Most "skeptics" seem to believe what they're told even when the science behind it is "soup of the day".

I believe the brain is quite simple in its own very complex way. It only seems complex to us because of our perspective. We attribute characteristics of language to the individual because we must understand it through the only medium we have to think; language. People have even gone so far as to say "I think therefore I am" when the reality is we must first exist and learn language in order to think at all. Thought doesn't prove one's existence merely that language exists. Even the lowest life forms know they exist and need no founding principles to avoid predators. I believe there is a natural integration of senses, mind, and body in animals and this is the operating system of the animal brain. This operating system is also the animal language which they use to communicate within and across species (to a more limited extent). Humans must unlearn this in order to acquire our language. The problem here is very very simple; everything we are thinking, all our knowledge, and the very means we use to think are obscured by the perspective generated by language. When we think about sentience, ai, and intelligence we are actually pondering language and its effects rather than consciuousness or cleverness. When we try to program or design a computer to be "intelligent" we are actually programming it to manipulate language. It seems very improbable that sentience or consciousness will simply emerge through such an ability. I'm in general agreement but I still don't like the term "intelligence". I'd prefer to say that most cleverness is specific to both the individual and his experience as well as to the species. An artist elephant might is far less likely to invent new techniques or processes to paint than a human artist yet more likely than a human cosmologist. But almost any beaver is far more likely to come up with a new means of building a wooden dam with no lumber than any human. I seriously doubt modeling the human brain is even possible until we can distill the structure from the operating system we call language. I'm not so sure the human brain is even best suited to machine intelligence. It's quite possible that far simpler brains like insects would be more suitable. If an insect can navigate a car then why can't it serve as the formatting for machine intelligence?

Then a person that is twice as intelligent is twice as conscious? If a person is 1000 times smarter than an insect than it should follow he's 1000 times more conscious or sentient. Are the chimps that beat college students in games of intelligence more aware than the college students. Are elephants which can paint self portraits more intelligent or more sentient than humans who can't? What about children? Are they less aware? How about the individual beaver which invented dam building? If the terms don't fit reality then the terms must be jettisoned. If you're using terms that aren't reflected in the real world then how can you model the real world in order to deal with it or invent "ai". Our terms and language have been in use for many centuries but we now know that they don't very well describe reality. There simply aren't terms to compare the nature of a self portrait painting elephant with a child. This isn't a failure of the child or the elephant but a failure of language and using this language is causing us to see a reality that doesn't exist. It is interfering with our ability to invent machine intelligence*. * I feel justified using the term here because when speed of thought is orders of magnitude faster then cleverness can essentially become a state rather than an event.

I did say what I mean in another way trying to relate it to something everyone can understand. Since intrelligence doesn't really exist as it is commonly understood it is best to simply not use the term. However we can all see that some people are more apt to make connections or faster to do so. Some individuals can achieve results others can't. This is primarily the result of "ideas" and those who think more quickly or more clearly are more prone to having simple or complex ideas. The generation of these ideas is what I am calling "cleverness" and are more related to sentience than to "intelligence". If you twist my arm I'll agree that there really is such a thing as "intelligence" but it's simply not what most people believe it is. You've done a reasonably good job of outlining its nature here. True "intelligence" is more related to speed of thought and speed is rarely impoirtant in results by itself. Without knowledge, experience, and understanding of relevant considerations intelligence has little utility. If one's experience can't be extrapolated to the situation then his intelligence is of no value. Yes, I tend to just talk louder when not understood. It's a hard habit to break and easily acquired.

Not really. I doubt anyone here would feel threatened by a sentient computer with the IQ of an oak tree. As you probably know most researchers have given up on the idea of AS and there is more concentration on "simulated intelligence" (AI). By whatever name anyone chooses I seriously doubt we'll sentience or intelligence until we better understand the nature of both. Perhaps 20 years is a little optimistic.

It's not my contention that the word "infinity" doesn't exist. Merely that it probably has no referent. We wouldn't have the word "zebra" if there was nothing that looked like a striped horse. The only referent for "infinity" is in the construct which is math. The odds against something never becomne infinite or nothing could happen. The odds against everything are simply enormous on a universal scale. You can't divide anything by two more than several times in the real word. If you cut a two by four in half a few times there will be nothing but sawdust for the last piece. Try folding a piece of paper eight times. My comment is very much being taken out of context by being split off and I agree with Mordred that this discussion may be infinitely foolish. I have nothing to gain from pursuing it. I had said that the world is "far more complex than "infinitely complex" anyway. The odds of any given event occuring are effectively less than the reciprocal of infinity. If you ever think they are greater than you're looking at too large a scale or too short a time frame." I meant this to say virtually nothing is really possible yet everything exists anyway and people take the existence of infinity to mean everything is possible and everything (even worlds without a Lincoln) exists. This is about perspective and this discussion is turning it into something more akin to semantics. The reality is that there is no world without Lincoln and there's probably no referent for "infinity" in the real world where we all exist.

You're simply ignoring the point. It doesn't matter to you what intelligence is because you know you have it in abundance. How can you not be intelligent when you can learn so much and tell the teacher anything he wants to hear? You know that any creature that would allow itself to be glued to a car can't be intelligent. I never said nor do I believe such a thing. The only real difference between us is you can't imagine that language is as important as thought. Again you're saying things that aren't real. Even were they real you can't understand any assertion if you aren't even trying. There's simply nothing complex about anything I'm saying. Apparently the only "reasoning" you understand is math. There are no equations that govern how an insect navigates the car to which it is glued. I can handle the gainsaying and lack of understanding but it's much harder to handle posts that disappear. It's quite rude of you to point it out. Your refusal to address my points may be even more tedious. I address ALL of your points and you almost never address ANY of mine. I asked you earlier how we could invent artificial intelligence or machine intelligence if we don't what intelligence even is. "It's not so much that "intelligence" doesn't exist at all as it is that we misapprehend its nature." I do have a "shorthand" way of talking that can be confusing. I'm merely suggesting that "intelligence" as percieved by most people isn't the result of a quick wit or the ability to think deeply or to come up with new ideas. Most people consider "intelligence" to be a state, a condition that applies to some people more than others and, no doubt, more to Strange than almost anyone. But this is a mistaken idea that is derived from thought and an understanding of many centuries of other peoples' thinking. It is not consistent with facts like that chimps can beat college students in some games involving "intelligence". It's not consistent with many established facts. These are the same facts ignored over and over because people tend to interpret the reality right out of the facts. "Intelligence" to the degree it exists at all is an event. I prefer to call it a "manifestation of cleverness" because anyone or anything can be clever but "intelligent" people can in some cases rarely be clever. Cleverness is usually easy to recognize because it's an idea that arises spontraneously and usually from pre-existing knowledge. We are talking about Ai without even understanding the nature of "i". The Turing test is a misdirection because allit does is to program a computer to manipulate words. Of what value are words if people can't understand or speak to such simple concepts as I am. There is nothing complicated about the idea that humans aren't intelligent. It seems to me that any half way "intelligent" person should be able to grasp the idea even if he doesn't agree. At the very least it might open up a dialog about the validity of the current direction of research or the nature of what we do call "intelligence".

As a concept or as a construct "infinity" exists but there is no referent for it in the entire universe. If there were a referent for it then we can imagine a world that is in all ways identical to our world except there was no Abraham Lincoln. Where there was a Lincoln there instead a void. This is obviously an impossibility. No such world can exist. How can people concieve of "infinity" but not notice the impossibly enormous odds against all actual events? What are the odds that somebody would enter exactly this post at exactly this time? What are the odds as determined by all human knowledge in 1890? What are the odds I'd type "hhdejlggfllk" to try tomake a point? There are a million ways to try to make this exact same point in this exact same thread but I typed "hhdejlggfllk". When I started this post I had no idea where it was headed. So what are the odds? I once had an idea for a computer language that led me to compute how many monkeys and typewriters you'd need to get a readable copy of War and Peace in one attempt. It's ~ 4.2 X 10 ^ 805,999. But what are the odds that it would be written exactly as it exists before it was even begun? All things are intimately connected. How would the world be different today if it had a different ending or the author had achieved more brevity? As you go back in time things have more impact on the present. If you physically could kill a butterfly in the Jurassic how would things be different today? A number has no meaning except as it's being used correctly in an equation. What value is a number like ((((((((10 ^ 10) ^10) ^ 10) ^ 10) ^ 10) ^ 10) ^10) ^ 10)unless it can be applied to something? Yet this number (while easily divisible by 2 or 10) is, no doubt, far too small to express the odds against reality itself.

So... ...is your contention that a computer can't drive from food source to food source that it isn't hungry or that it has no little feet to glue to the pedals? Maybe if we called it "Ford" it could drive about? If we can't define "intelligence" then we wouldn't recognize it when we invented it. I would say that until a machine can expand on existing knowledge or technology that any other test is pretty much meaningless or mere semantics. Maybe you're still missing the point.

I'm sure no brain cells were harmed in the making of this post. I've spend nearly 60 years thinking about AI and machine intelligence. Perhaps if you tried to see things from other perspectives you'd at least realize there exist other perspectives. Perhaps you'd even see what I'm talking about. When all you do is quote one little piece of my post it's very difficult to know what you aren't following. What is so complex about the concept that you don't even need to understand how a wheel works to drive to the store? If you glue the feet of an insect to the pedals of a tiny car it can drive from food source to food source but that doesn't make it Henry Ford. Is it impossible for you to even entertain the possibility that we are each a product of learning and not of intelligence? Where are you lost?

Sure. And it's possible that subatomic particals can bounce off of one another in an infinity of different angles. But in the real world there aren't an infinite number of resistances for a variable pot. Resistance at any setting is determined by the interface of the two conductors. The number of different resistances is exceedinly high and the changes over time are exceeding complex but it is not infinite. You say there are an infinite number of numbers but again the real world doesn't work this way. Of what value is a number so large that the there is no means to record it even with a device the size of the known universe? For all practical purposes a number so large it can't be recorded on a single disc doesn't really exist. How do you manipulate this number and what would be its purpose? You might draw a circle and claim it has an infinite number of sides but when you look at it under magnification it doesn't look like a circle at all. There's nothing that's infinite in the real world for practical purposes unless you choose to view it that way.

Various reasons, some of which are off topic here. Chiefly it will have been the result of the ever increasing complexity of circuit design and a better understanding of the nature of the brain. Eventually we'll be able to model either the brain or its function electronically. I believe most of the ideas necessary to accomplish this already exist and we're primarily waiting for more miniaturization and better understanding of the brain. Even animals get up in the morning and get on with their day. It's not so much that "intelligence" doesn't exist at all as it is that we misapprehend its nature. Most of what we call "intelligence" is merely consciousness. Most of the rest of "intelligence" isn't a condition at all; it's an event. When we think of something new we call it an "idea". Most of the rest of "intelligence" involves learning and utilizing knowledge gained by others as ideas. Human progress is the result of arrays and series of ideas arranged around existing knowledge. You can call this progress the result of intelligence but if you do then you must exclude wide swathes of the human population from having any intelligence at all. If we want a machine that can generate ideas then we will probably need a better understanding of intelligence to achieve it. Otherwise we'll just be making machines that can pass the Turing test by manipulating language.

If you had a machine capable of infinite speed you could go to London and back in a moment. You could go anywhere in a moment including the ends of the universe. "Infinity" is a mathematical construct that can't exist in reality. For all practical purposes the exceedly complex nature of reality is far greater than infinity anyway. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and causes galaxies to collide. We can't predict the outcome of a single atomic collision yet a virtually infinite number of such collisions take place on a virtually infintesimal time scale which in aggregate determine not only our reality but the reality of colliding galaxies in the far future.

There will never be such a thing as AI because there is no such thing as "intelligence". Eventually we will invent a machine intelligence. I doubt it will be further out than 20 years and is the greatest single threat to the human species.

No. It's not "infinitely complex" because there is no such thing as "infinity" in the real world. It's far more complex than "infinitely complex" anyway. The odds of any given event occuring are effectively less than the reciprocal of infinity. If you ever think they are greater than you're looking at too large a scale or too short a time frame. Maybe I'll just log back out again for a few months now.

Science is a process dependent on metaphysics with it's own language that is nondeconstructable. Philosophy is dependent on words that mean a little something different to each person. Psychology is far worse because all knowledge is dependent on arcane and poorly defined or understood terms. Human progress is solely the result of language and its ability to allow individuals to build on the work of the past. It's impossible to build on the work of the past if you don't understand it the way it was intended. It's impossible to study the id or superego if there's no such thing as the subconscious.

Thanks again. I'm very sorry but I was confused and it was actually a beetle rather than a cricket. Wiki suggests some beetles actually cultivate fungus.

There are no laws of nature. If there were then you couldn't break them. Nature does what it does through cause and effect. But the effect can only be guessed at because the cause can never be defined completely and the means by which it operates is poorly understood.

Thank you. Very appreciated. Is it plausible that they might survive on microbes and very small organisms eating wood? I really should have noticed this inconsisteny immediately but somehow did not. The western boat pit at the base of the Great Pyramid had nothing in it but a disassembled boat so far as I know. When a camera and lights were lowered through an airtight opening recently a cricket came up to investigate it. This is a tightly sealed hole with almost no water and a boat that has apparently sat here mostly undisturbed for about 4700 years. The boat does exhibit some decomposition. The CO2 level in the pit is double normal with about half of it being ancient carbon (released from the stone?). There are some modern contaminants sugesting an incomplete seal. It is widely believed that the water was introduced by condensation from an ice cream truck that was parked over this location in the early '50's. This area is quite large and approximately 60' by 12' by 15' deep. For some reason the incongruity of a cricket in here escaped my notice initially. Any further thoughts would be very appreciated.

I'm sure they can thrive in an enviroment of rotting wood but can they actually eat the wood? If you have an enviroment of dry and rotting pine, cyprus, acacia, and dry grasses (hafagrass) made into rope is it natural to have crickets? No other insect life is actually reported.