Elon Musk: Artificial intelligence = "summoning the demon"

[zangtang]

collective genetic wisdom, manifested thru group consciousness, in real time?

egrigore?

[slimmouse]

collective genetic wisdom, manifested thru group consciousness, in real time?

egrigore?

Well of course we dont know this for sure, but to me its sure as good an explanation as ''flocking''

Try telling a ''scientist'' that though. Theyre most likely to tell you that its simply "'flocking''

Which i find flocking ridiculous.

Edited to add.. -- There was a thread around here a while back started by Mac, which explained how in smaller species, the speed of their metabolism caused them to effectively see the world in slow motion. The end result is that a mayfly, who lives on average for a day, actually experiences the equivalent of 70 years of human time. This might go some of the way to explaining the extraordinary co-ordinated aeronautics on display with this phenomenon (enough of the flocking)

Though nobody of course knows why.

[a11235813]

collective genetic wisdom, manifested thru group consciousness, in real time?

egrigore?

Well of course we dont know this for sure, but to me its sure as good an explanation as ''flocking''

Try telling a ''scientist'' that though. Theyre most likely to tell you that its simply "'flocking''

Which i find flocking ridiculous.

Hi slimmouse,

This kind of simple-rules-producing-complex-behavior has been demonstrated in a number of instances (Conway's Game of Life, examples from Wolfram's book, and so on). But if you are questioning per se how simple rules produce complex behavior, that's a probably a deeper(philosophical?) question.

Regards,
a11235813

[slimmouse]

collective genetic wisdom, manifested thru group consciousness, in real time?

egrigore?

Well of course we dont know this for sure, but to me its sure as good an explanation as ''flocking''

Try telling a ''scientist'' that though. Theyre most likely to tell you that its simply "'flocking''

Which i find flocking ridiculous.

Hi slimmouse,

This kind of simple-rules-producing-complex-behavior has been demonstrated in a number of instances (Conway's Game of Life, examples from Wolfram's book, and so on). But if you are questioning per se how simple rules produce complex behavior, that's a probably a deeper(philosophical?) question.

Regards,
a11235813

Yes. With the caveat that cutting edge science should surely also ultimately be a game of philosophy, or at least it should be in there somewhere. One of the reasons I'm so in awe with Ancient cultures, is that they appear to successfully incorporate important philosophical messages and slants into so much of their own outstanding scientific understanding. We know for sure that The science of Ancient Egypt for example was almost exclusively about the human being.

These days the direction of modern science doesnt tend to get too deeply involved with the human angle, other than that of a means for the human unit to generate fiscal profit for the ultimate benefit of the tiny minority. Its surely no wonder therefore that the overriding philosopy is nothing but that of even more cold, dry reductionism.

Which is to suggest that most of this is directly related to the direction of the scientific work itself. You probably dont need to be a rocket scientist to look at the world and understand that as a species, our Science tends to be steered in just about all the wrong directions. Directions such as complex financial instruments, Warfare, GMO's, efforts to patent nature, and fancy gadgets. That isnt to say that all of this is bad, but you know...

Which is also why, dare I say it, we should be grateful to a board and an OP such as this

[Luther Blissett]

Probably not. Sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_%28behavior%29

It is considered an emergent behavior arising from simple rules that are followed by individuals and does not involve any central coordination.

You see the problem here? They have just given you some kiind of term for whats going on, without explaining what you see, or in other words how they manage to do this.

explaining this phemomena as flocking is all well and good, but it doesnt explain this in any kind of fashion that makes sense to anybody watchiing it.

It's been suggested that these murmurations or sort sols are the result of smaller animals experiencing time at an entirely different rate than humans. Thread here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37173

And seemslikeadream posted about murmurations elsewhere: viewtopic.php?p=547600#p547600

[slimmouse]

Hey Luther,

I actually edited a subsequent post to make mention of the thread you have apparently linked to.

So , Big thanks for that I can go and read it again now. I think I actually made a comment on that old thread somewhere .

Heres the comment ...

Really interesting stuff Mac, thanks. And CD too !

My first thought was how it might explain the apparent "collective conciousness" activities of a flock of birds and perhaps shoals of fish.

But especially fascinating in the light of relative lifespans.

[DrEvil]

Probably not. Sorry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_%28behavior%29

It is considered an emergent behavior arising from simple rules that are followed by individuals and does not involve any central coordination.

You see the problem here? They have just given you some kiind of term for whats going on, without explaining what you see, or in other words how they manage to do this.

explaining this phemomena as flocking is all well and good, but it doesnt explain this in any kind of fashion that makes sense to anybody watchiing it.

The article does actually explain it a bit more than "it's flocking!".

Basic models of flocking behavior are controlled by three simple rules:

Separation - avoid crowding neighbors (short range repulsion)
Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighbors
Cohesion - steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction)

With these three simple rules, the flock moves in an extremely realistic way, creating complex motion and interaction that would be extremely hard to create otherwise.

There's an artificial life program called Boids that simulates the flocking behavior of birds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUkjC-69vaw

It's an emergent behavior. Simple agents interacting to create complex outcomes. You find it everywhere in nature and there's nothing mysterious about it.

Edit: You're also making the mistake of seeing it purely from a human perspective. Our perceptions are extremely limited, and there's no reason to think that we should be able to make sense of it just by watching it with our own eyes. It may look like "magic" from our limited viewpoint, but that doesn't mean it is.

[slimmouse]

Hey Doc, thanks for the reply.

I have to say in truth that I believe that almost all of the magic in that video comes in aesthetic form.
It all happens inside the experiencer

I say this, mainly due to my increased leaning towards the famous theory or quote that there are no miracles, just unobserved laws of nature,

You see, its my own personalI belief that we intelligent monkeys have kinda forgotten who we are and where we came from. and probably largely as a result of this, we find this world in the big mess it currently is.

Furthermore for all of our scientific complexity, I also believe that we know so little about the real laws of nature that its not even funny.

But hey, thats just me.

Edited to add. I just watched the computer simulation. did you notice any difference between that and the one I posted ?

I also read the article in its entirety earlier. Im glad you posted some for us

[DrEvil]

^^Yeah, the simulation isn't an exact replica of birds flocking, but it's a pretty good approximation. It's just the first hit from youtube, so I could probably find something better if I could be arsed.

And I agree that magic is just laws of nature we don't understand, and that we're probably not even close to really understanding the universe. We may not even be capable of understanding it.
I'm pretty sure evolution doesn't care about our capability to understand our world.

To steal shamelessly from Peter Watts:

You have three guys out hunting. First one sees a tiger in the grass and runs home to his village. Turns out it was just the wind and his friends call him a chickenshit and laugh at him.
Second guy sees a tiger in the grass and runs home, and it was a tiger, so yay - he survived.
Third guy sees a tiger in the grass and thinks "Nah, it's just the wind", and gets eaten.

Moral of the story is: Paranoid chickenshits have more kids than dead people. Truth has nothing to do with it.

[BrandonD]

Both spiderwebs and birds nests can be made using pretty simple rules. The final result is an emergent property of those simple rules.

This claim of "simple rules" seems rather hyperbolic, and considering that spider webs are created by operating largely in 3-dimensional empty space - where there is no ground to contact and orient one's self - I'm very skeptical that this is in fact true.

However, if the rules for a spider building a web are in fact so simple, then this should be quite easy to prove. It should be no trouble to build a robot that can create a spider web in the exact manner that a spider does - in empty space, connecting asymmetrical surfaces that are not in contact with one another.

After doing a bit of research, it seems the best example I could find was a robot spider that creates a web by rolling on the ground in 2-dimensional space, with the basic 2 diagonal and 2 horizontal strands of the web already created. This is a LONG way from creating a web, in my opinion.

Perhaps the rules are in fact simple, I could be wrong. But I am highly skeptical of these frankly arrogant claims when made by contemporary science, which gives less of a damn about discerning reality and more of a damn about "proving" that God doesn't exist.

[Joe Hillshoist]

collective genetic wisdom, manifested thru group consciousness, in real time?

egrigore?

Well of course we dont know this for sure, but to me its sure as good an explanation as ''flocking''

Try telling a ''scientist'' that though. Theyre most likely to tell you that its simply "'flocking''

Which i find flocking ridiculous.

Flocking behaviour exists because of the collective genetic wisdom of the creatures that employ flocking and similar behaviours.

Basic models of flocking behavior are controlled by three simple rules:

Separation - avoid crowding neighbors (short range repulsion)
Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighbors
Cohesion - steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction)

With these three simple rules, the flock moves in an extremely realistic way, creating complex motion and interaction that would be extremely hard to create otherwise.

If a group of animals follow those rules its because they're employing their collective genetic wisdom and that wisdom manifests as a form of group consciousness in real time. The flock could even be called an egregore because the rules are such that following them maintains the flock. The flock becomes a thing that appears to exhibit a "group consciousness". So if a scientist tells you its simply flocking they are right. It doesn't mean what zangtang said is wrong tho. Just that different people use different words to explain the same thing.

Metaphorically - humans are an egregore made of up the tiny cells following simple rules that lead to all the complex behaviours we exhibit.

[justdrew]

check it out...

great short short story...

[slimmouse]

We may not even be capable of understanding it.
I'm pretty sure evolution doesn't care about our capability to understand our world

I would agree with the first part, but I''m nothing like so sure about the second. In fact I would probably argue that the ability to understand all of this is one of our prime'' raisson d''etre''.

Funny how we just dont seem to have the time to think about this too much huh?

I should add that I believe that one of the major problems here to me is the nature of language. Our method of communication sucks fundamentally. Some of what we talking chimps have achieved with such a low tech model of warbling sound waves at one another is actually quite impressive when you think about it. But this model of communication itself is open to any amount of interpretation, which the ruling minority have exploited to the full, via their political, financial and religious lackeys.

I strongly suspect that in ages past, we were probably capable of less ambiguous means of making ourselves understood to each other - although I also fully understand this is in itself a speculative statement.

Finally, damn that Comet about 13k years ago is what I say. We appear to have been making decent fist of it all until then. As Graham Hancock suggests - that catastrophe appears to have left us as a species with amnesia, with all the resulting insanity that this has led to.

[slimmouse]

However, if the rules for a spider building a web are in fact so simple, then this should be quite easy to prove. It should be no trouble to build a robot that can create a spider web in the exact manner that a spider does - in empty space, connecting asymmetrical surfaces that are not in contact with one another.

I suspect we might get into more serious trouble when we get down to real scales, and try introducing a feature that can spin its own internal web, consisting of fibres which for their weight are as strong as steel, and sticky as hell.

Nature it would appear, can produce such observable magic at will. Im not sure what the biological legalese for this is though - I suspect its simply evolution. I do know that the Egyptian word for God or Gods is Neter, just as the name for the Ancient Egypt is Khemet ( cos these fuckers were real alchemists)

Hey Joe, forgot to greet you earlier. Welcome back.

[DrEvil]

Both spiderwebs and birds nests can be made using pretty simple rules. The final result is an emergent property of those simple rules.

This claim of "simple rules" seems rather hyperbolic, and considering that spider webs are created by operating largely in 3-dimensional empty space - where there is no ground to contact and orient one's self - I'm very skeptical that this is in fact true.

However, if the rules for a spider building a web are in fact so simple, then this should be quite easy to prove. It should be no trouble to build a robot that can create a spider web in the exact manner that a spider does - in empty space, connecting asymmetrical surfaces that are not in contact with one another.

After doing a bit of research, it seems the best example I could find was a robot spider that creates a web by rolling on the ground in 2-dimensional space, with the basic 2 diagonal and 2 horizontal strands of the web already created. This is a LONG way from creating a web, in my opinion.

Perhaps the rules are in fact simple, I could be wrong. But I am highly skeptical of these frankly arrogant claims when made by contemporary science, which gives less of a damn about discerning reality and more of a damn about "proving" that God doesn't exist.

This link has a nice animation showing how a spider makes its web:
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/arachnids/spider5.htm

And really, trying to explain something in the natural world isn't "proving" that God doesn't exist.
You can't prove that God doesn't exist, just like you can't prove that he does exist (or that there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars). Science isn't trying to prove God's non-existence. It does however produce all kinds of results that conflict with the Bible (which is why we have lunatic young Earthers running around spouting their nonsense).
If reality conflicts with your beliefs you should probably reevaluate your beliefs (or become a scientist and prove reality wrong ).