The Beginning of Infinity

[cozy]

Almost exactly a year ago, well, later October, it all started with an article about a possible solarpunk future.
I posted the above link with,

I'm digging this!

To which Richard replied with the same link and this message,

Sorry, wrong button! Yes, this is very interesting and doable. And this present climate is a great opportunity to do it. If these ideas were carried through it would be unnecessary to rail against the institutions because they would be proved obsolete and ineffective and would die of their own accord.

After a week or so I finally came back to this idea about a "solarpunk future," having read a chapter in The Beginning of Infinity that covered what Deutsch summarized in this lecture titled "Chemical scum that dreams of distant quasars,") and replied,

Late reply is usual, but definitely what I was thinking! Institutions sminstituitions is what I say.

Also RE: that book I was going on about, still really into this David Deutsch philosophy: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-infinite-optimism-of-physicist-david-deutsch/ cc: @Fidel Montoya

Time passed. There was talk of Yen Princes, Fear in Jazz, and CBDCs. 
November 29th, 9:72PM:

Youtube Video

Podcast released a few hours ago covering basically everything I was trying to say without getting hung up on the words “infinity” and “explanation,” though he uses those concepts frequently in the talk. Worth a listen!

Before this post there has been a game day where Daniel Dennett's deepities, was brought up (if I remember correctly), and there was a name that we were at a loss for,

This guy Deepak Chopra was the guy whose name I was at a loss for. I understand your enthusiasm for philosophy and truth. I just hope you don't turn into Deepak...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU6TkfCGlX8

This put me on the defensive,

Deepak Chopra is a author and alternative-medicine advocate (aka. is a grifter and a charlatan).

David Deutsch is a Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University and an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. (copied from his website).

Fidel and I had our first written exchange about infinity and explanations.

Personally, I don't have a whole lot of interest in philosophy because it's utility seems subjective and all too often it's advocates attempt to hijack scientific discoveries, insert woo in the gaps of scientific knowledge or outright tresspass on the domain of science without consent of the consensus of scientists in a given field.

Myself,

He’s a physicist, but I definitely hear where you’re coming from regarding philosophy.

Fidel,

I guess, to me, I was kind of feeling like the discussion of "Infinite number of explanations" was going down Woo BLVD.

TLOL. To be clear on my part, the time to give consideration to anything that is being put forth as "an explanation" of/for anything or any given question, is when the preponderance of evidence has given us no choice but to give it that consideration. Thus, I simply do not see how more than a handful can be recognized as explanations, much less an "infinite" number of them.

Time passed again, I posted about Electrical blueprints for Life. And subsequently linked to the books that I just can't seem to help but proselytize. The Fabric of Reality, and the Beginning of Infinity. Also a book about a novel way of studying the physics of quantum information that is less focused on particular particles and their trajectories: Constructor Theory.

Time passed, board games were played, digitally and analogically. We had a conversation about GPT-3, AI, and AGI mentioning Deutsch's ideas again, set to this music Richard shared.

Yup, I've seen what GPT-3 already capable of doing, but you still need to be able to audit code if you want to check if it's usable (eg. it created a React form submission button--but you still need to know what a buttons looks like, if it's targeting the write form, http request types and parameters, and what javascript actions are getting triggered).

But yeah, there's a lot of talk about the mistakes in the phrase "99 percent perspiration" (or something like that) in the Beginning of Infinity. Here's a bit:

If we make an AI capable of being creative (making discoveries), then it's the same as a person. Deutsch says it's possible, but it can only happen one of two ways (see: https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/two-guesses-about-creativity either no automation can be creative and we need a new mode of computation (the goal of constructor theory), OR there is a kind of automation under the prevailing conception that produces emergent phenomena that constitute creativity (consciousness is an emergent phenomena).

Somehow, we have arrived back at the start of this month, October 2021. After our most recent board game session, in which there was another heated discussion about science and people's place in the universe, I posted yet ANOTHER link to a Deutsch TED talk titled, After billions of years of monotony, the universe is waking up. At that begun our more lengthy discussions.

[Skull]

Great job Cody, sorting out the path of our discussions One minor quibble; the ' set to this music Richard shared.' link doesn't seem to go to music. I can't remember for the life of me what music I shared, though lol

[Josh]

That's a helluva reading/watching list. I didn't have a chance to absorb it all at the time but I'll try to work my way through it in the coming weeks. I remember that first Deutsch talk. I liked his description of a typical place in the universe. Rare Earth is an excellent book about how atypical our place in the universe is. I actually found out about it from Peter Ward's TED talk. Really interesting book!

...there is a kind of automation under the prevailing conception that produces emergent phenomena that constitute creativity (consciousness is an emergent phenomena).

I'm not clear on what this means but that's probably because I still have all that reading to do.

[Here was my response to the Deutsch 'billions of years of monotony' talk that you posted Oct. 7th]

Deutch is a really smart guy but a very theoretical theoretical physicist. I mean I just hope it all ties into something practical. Humans may be capable of explanatory knowledge but we've got a lot of problems that aren't getting solved. One reason is that everyone has to follow the money. Smart people working for the wrong company or a company doing the wrong thing because, no matter what you make, somehow, we still need the money.

By the way, I'm sorry I misrepresented myself the other night. I do know that we're choking the life out of the planet. I just don't think we WILL choke the life out of the planet. Life will figure out a way to survive with or without us and, if we're to survive, it will only be because survival became profitable.

...to which you wrote something in a google doc which I hope you'll repost here.

[cozy]

the ' set to this music Richard shared.' link doesn't seem to go to music

Fixed! Here was the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1R-m93uek
Also, fixed the reference for the comment, "a kind of automation under the prevailing conception that produces emergent phenomena that constitute creativity..." related to Dennis Hackethal. He's a controversial figure in the AGI community for comments like these regarding the anthropomorphization of animals. He's also a fan of Deutsch.

Before I posted the really long post, there's another response from Richard, I think we should add as well.

[snoopy]

As a lot of this has come back to roost on my brain, I also remember ironing out the red flags I had with Cody's position when we at Cody's house, just after wrapping up our gaming session. I'll keep an eye on this thread though, in case another one presents itself.

[cozy]

One person keeping an eye out for red flags is a red flag to me ;)--So, let's all be on guard for red flags. Down with the CCP!

But in the meantime, what I'm really looking forward to, is those brain eggs you alluded to.