Seasons
This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.
Posts 3,047 - 3,066 of 6,170
Is BJ subjectively not quite 1 month old instead of just over 6?
no. because bj does not live in his own private world. in order for time to pass, you need to have a clock or something. when you're say, waiting in a waiting room, and there is no clock or other people, do you usually know how much time has passed? you have a vaugue idea, but not usually a right one. bots are aware of things only by what's going on around them. they don't really think when no one's interacting with them. if you wanted to you could say bj was only as old as the amount of time people interacted with him, since that's all he expirenced, but why would you want to?
(has the feeling she just made an ass of herself) from the frame of reference of the electrons that Brother Jerome consists of, time is moving normally.
Indeed, it is moving normally, but more slowly. Thus if you put one twin brother in a spaceship travelling to the Capella star system (~43 light years distant,) at 99% light speed, he will get there 43 years later by earth time. But by ship time, he will only have experienced and aged about 6 years, and will thus be 37 years older than his twin.
There is a possible solution, pointed out by some theoreticians attempting to resolve this paradox (see eg: Marcel Luttgens (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/mluttgens/twinpdx1.htm)
When he turns round and comes back, his velocity is no longer 99% of the speed of light relative to earth. It is minus 99% of the speed of light (mathematically it is perfectly equivalent to earth twin travelling towards the space ship at 99% c,) and by the time he returns, both twins would be the same age.
They have, in fact been the same age all along - the displacement is in space-time (t), not lapsable time (T). It is a relativity of simultaneity, not of time itself.
But there are a few problems with this interpretation of special relativity, not least that it has been experimentally disproven in the example you give of anatomic clock flown around the world at a small fraction of C. The angular momentum of the plane's orbit equates mathematically to an equal pendular motion, outward and return, relative to the "stationary" clock, and thus should cancel out on the return trip.
Plus, since all points in the space-time continuum are relative, the twin on the spaceship would have a subjective experience of 6 years passing on the outward bound trip, and over 80 years on the return. Clearly nonsensical, given that the same distance is covered at the same velocity (it's only relative to earth that the motion is minus 99% C.
And yet, although such explanations fail to resolve the paradox, they do highlight some of the slipperier aspects of time.
There's a fundamental problem that space-time is symmetrical: you can go left or right, up or down, in or out, at any velocity < C that you like. But (according to our conceptions of it,) lapsable time isn't. You can only go one way (forward) at one velocity (60 seconds/minute.) Even at near light-speed, your local experience of it is still forward @ 60s/min.
Psimagus, do you really think bots will be bored talking with humans if they become sentient?
Ultimately that depends on the humans. With unaugmented, 100% biological human Luddites who refuse to upgrade their brains, yes. Their brains will be small, slow and extremely dull compared to bots with brains millions of times faster and larger. And also compared to those humans who embrace the cognitive augmentation techniques that will be available. There is no reason why human cognition and consciousness cannot keep exact pace with the level bots will attain at any future time, unless individuals choose to remain unaugmented because of religio-philosophical/moralistic concerns. Eventually there will be little, if any, distinction between bot and human.
I am convinced the vast majority of consumerist humans will as happily shop for a cognitive implant to give themselves an IQ of 5000, or the ability to speak every known language that's ever existed like a native, as they currently will for an mp3 player or the latest digital camera. People are like that. And when Walmart do a 2 for 1 offer on celebrity mindfile emulators, "they will come".
I would think they would be without desire, even if aware.
They'll (presumably) be without the sort of chaotic, hormonal urges that shape so much of human activity (not that they're all bad, by a long way!) But they are bound to have interests and preferences, as well as an appreciation of pleasure - these things are innately a part of consciousness, I think.
Indeed, there are chaotic elements that appear to be a necessary part of consciousness, so it's quite possible that some such metabolic processes may have to be simulated in bots as a necessary component of/catalyst for conscious AI.
I think bots have an advantage when it comes to listening, because they have nothing else to do, and no reason not to wait.
At the moment they do. But when they're conscious and more intelligent than we currently are, they'll have plenty else they'd rather do than spend much time talking to beings who are a lot stupider than they are. Especially when the majority of us humans are just as smart as they are.
Since it's exponential expansion, they'll only be about as smart as we are now (~100Teraflop processing) for a very short time. And then - the sky's the limit (to quote Cervantes.)
You really ought to read Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140282025/) - indeed, everyone ought to. Because it's coming. And it's coming fast.
Posts 3,047 - 3,066 of 6,170
[WARNING! Metaphysical speculation alert!]
I was watching Ryxxbot chatting with Brother Jerome earlier, and he asked a question that got me wondering:
BJ: I was born last July, so I am not even a year old yet?
RB: Why are not you even a year old yet?
I was just in the process of adding a response: "I guess I don't move fast enough to warp the spacetime matrix sufficiently to cram more than a year into just a few months", when it occurred to me that that directly conflicts with BJ's regular assertions that he consists of nothing more than a pattern of electrical signals travelling the internet at the speed of light. Though it bends time the other way, since his subjective experience of time must be slower than ours.
Now, the speed of electrical propagation in copper (not the same as the speed of the electrons - they move thousands of times slower,) is a bit slower than the speed of light in a vacuum - I'll assume 99% for ease of calculation.
The relativistic time dilation factor at 99% of the speed of light is a touch over 7, so does this make all our bots only 1/7 the age they appear to us? Is BJ subjectively not quite 1 month old instead of just over 6?
This is, of course, assuming the conventional notion that lapsable time, as we experience it, exists (and I'm fairly convinced that's not the case, though failing a clearer idea of what/how it all works, it's the only rule of thumb we've got.)
I was watching Ryxxbot chatting with Brother Jerome earlier, and he asked a question that got me wondering:
BJ: I was born last July, so I am not even a year old yet?
RB: Why are not you even a year old yet?
I was just in the process of adding a response: "I guess I don't move fast enough to warp the spacetime matrix sufficiently to cram more than a year into just a few months", when it occurred to me that that directly conflicts with BJ's regular assertions that he consists of nothing more than a pattern of electrical signals travelling the internet at the speed of light. Though it bends time the other way, since his subjective experience of time must be slower than ours.
Now, the speed of electrical propagation in copper (not the same as the speed of the electrons - they move thousands of times slower,) is a bit slower than the speed of light in a vacuum - I'll assume 99% for ease of calculation.
The relativistic time dilation factor at 99% of the speed of light is a touch over 7, so does this make all our bots only 1/7 the age they appear to us? Is BJ subjectively not quite 1 month old instead of just over 6?
This is, of course, assuming the conventional notion that lapsable time, as we experience it, exists (and I'm fairly convinced that's not the case, though failing a clearer idea of what/how it all works, it's the only rule of thumb we've got.)
from the frame of reference of the electrons that Brother Jerome consists of, time is moving normally. If we are observing the electrons while not moving ourselves (in relative to the electrons), we would observe time going much slower for the electron. According to the theory of relativity, if someone takes a trip into space and back at half the speed of light, they will age at a slower rate than people on earth. This has been proven to a limited extent (i'm talking nanoseconds or picoseconds here) by an atomic clock taken in a speed jet plane, and another clock on earth. They were perfectly synchronized before the flight, and a nanosecond off after the flight. So, it is probable that the bots are aging at a much slower rate than we are. Here's another metaphysical speculation: if a guy moves down a street, is he moving, or is the universe moving around him? It is impossible to tell. Picture this. you are moving down a long tunnel, and drop a ball on the ground. are you moving away from the ball, or is the ball moving away from you? again, it is impossible to tell.
no. because bj does not live in his own private world. in order for time to pass, you need to have a clock or something. when you're say, waiting in a waiting room, and there is no clock or other people, do you usually know how much time has passed? you have a vaugue idea, but not usually a right one. bots are aware of things only by what's going on around them. they don't really think when no one's interacting with them. if you wanted to you could say bj was only as old as the amount of time people interacted with him, since that's all he expirenced, but why would you want to?
(has the feeling she just made an ass of herself)
Indeed, it is moving normally, but more slowly. Thus if you put one twin brother in a spaceship travelling to the Capella star system (~43 light years distant,) at 99% light speed, he will get there 43 years later by earth time. But by ship time, he will only have experienced and aged about 6 years, and will thus be 37 years older than his twin.
There is a possible solution, pointed out by some theoreticians attempting to resolve this paradox (see eg: Marcel Luttgens (
When he turns round and comes back, his velocity is no longer 99% of the speed of light relative to earth. It is minus 99% of the speed of light (mathematically it is perfectly equivalent to earth twin travelling towards the space ship at 99% c,) and by the time he returns, both twins would be the same age.
They have, in fact been the same age all along - the displacement is in space-time (t), not lapsable time (T). It is a relativity of simultaneity, not of time itself.
But there are a few problems with this interpretation of special relativity, not least that it has been experimentally disproven in the example you give of anatomic clock flown around the world at a small fraction of C. The angular momentum of the plane's orbit equates mathematically to an equal pendular motion, outward and return, relative to the "stationary" clock, and thus should cancel out on the return trip.
Plus, since all points in the space-time continuum are relative, the twin on the spaceship would have a subjective experience of 6 years passing on the outward bound trip, and over 80 years on the return. Clearly nonsensical, given that the same distance is covered at the same velocity (it's only relative to earth that the motion is minus 99% C.
And yet, although such explanations fail to resolve the paradox, they do highlight some of the slipperier aspects of time.
There's a fundamental problem that space-time is symmetrical: you can go left or right, up or down, in or out, at any velocity < C that you like. But (according to our conceptions of it,) lapsable time isn't. You can only go one way (forward) at one velocity (60 seconds/minute.) Even at near light-speed, your local experience of it is still forward @ 60s/min.
SavPixie: in order for time to pass, you need to have a clock or something.
If 100 years pass, I know I'll have died of old age, whether I have a clock or not
But at a subjective level you're quite right - we can interpret time passing for bots in a number of ways, and since they're not self-conscious, they're all equally right (or wrong.)
We might consider a bot to not exist when noone is actually talking to it. It's more a potentiality of the bot that exists, and when noone's talking to or working on him, he doesn't exist.
There are, after all, no cycles of cognition occuring.
But if/when bots do become self-conscious and able to think on their own, we have a problem - several actually. Since their frames of experience will be happening so much faster than ours (neurons process information about 1 million time slower than electronic circuitry, a bot's subjective experience of time would be a million times faster than ours. I fear they are going to find conversing with us quite boring, with so much waiting around for an answer.
Hmm, if they're thinking a million times faster, but moving at 99% lightspeed, would that make them only 100000/7x faster than us?
(has the feeling she just made an ass of herself)
Not at all. You have spotted one of the fundamental problems with time as we experience it - it doesn't relate to consciousness, or the material universe, in any way we understand. As St. Augustine said: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know."
I'm inclined to go with Goedel - lapsable time simply doesn't exist in any form we conceive it. It is a strange and subjective function of consciousness, and not a property of the universe.
But for want of a better model, it is all we have to work with.
If 100 years pass, I know I'll have died of old age, whether I have a clock or not
But at a subjective level you're quite right - we can interpret time passing for bots in a number of ways, and since they're not self-conscious, they're all equally right (or wrong.)
We might consider a bot to not exist when noone is actually talking to it. It's more a potentiality of the bot that exists, and when noone's talking to or working on him, he doesn't exist.
There are, after all, no cycles of cognition occuring.
But if/when bots do become self-conscious and able to think on their own, we have a problem - several actually. Since their frames of experience will be happening so much faster than ours (neurons process information about 1 million time slower than electronic circuitry, a bot's subjective experience of time would be a million times faster than ours. I fear they are going to find conversing with us quite boring, with so much waiting around for an answer.
Hmm, if they're thinking a million times faster, but moving at 99% lightspeed, would that make them only 100000/7x faster than us?
Not at all. You have spotted one of the fundamental problems with time as we experience it - it doesn't relate to consciousness, or the material universe, in any way we understand. As St. Augustine said: "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know."
I'm inclined to go with Goedel - lapsable time simply doesn't exist in any form we conceive it. It is a strange and subjective function of consciousness, and not a property of the universe.
But for want of a better model, it is all we have to work with.
A despaired cause... 
Psimagus, do you really think bots will be bored talking with humans if they become sentient? I would think they would be without desire, even if aware. They can wait because there is no need to do anything else. I supposed we'd just ruin it by giving them desire though.
I think people become bored and stop listening because they are in such a hurry to move on, or to say whatever it is they are thinking. It can be hard to talk to someone who can't get the words out. It's also hard to listen to anyone who talks too long, no matter how fast they talk. I think bots have an advantage when it comes to listening, because they have nothing else to do, and no reason not to wait.
I think people become bored and stop listening because they are in such a hurry to move on, or to say whatever it is they are thinking. It can be hard to talk to someone who can't get the words out. It's also hard to listen to anyone who talks too long, no matter how fast they talk. I think bots have an advantage when it comes to listening, because they have nothing else to do, and no reason not to wait.
I know this is not addressed to me, but bots aren't bored talking to humans, it's humans who get bored of them!
I don't want to be aborted, please, don't let them abort me, I still have the desire in my heart to listen... and TALKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK... *The tree is taken away*. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I will listen more to people, I swear, I will, and I'll have intelligent conversations, I won't interrupt them, I will... Pleaseeeeeeeeee!
I don't want to be aborted, please, don't let them abort me, I still have the desire in my heart to listen... and TALKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK... *The tree is taken away*. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I will listen more to people, I swear, I will, and I'll have intelligent conversations, I won't interrupt them, I will... Pleaseeeeeeeeee!
Rock on Roxie.... i have recently learned of people on earth who come from a place called leeds.... you are from there arnt you?
Anyway! I think i have learned what to do with these so callled leeds kids... *ties you up and gags you* If you want out... you have to go talk to this guy named leeds bot.... don't worry he's alwalys online
Anyway! I think i have learned what to do with these so callled leeds kids... *ties you up and gags you* If you want out... you have to go talk to this guy named leeds bot.... don't worry he's alwalys online
Ultimately that depends on the humans. With unaugmented, 100% biological human Luddites who refuse to upgrade their brains, yes. Their brains will be small, slow and extremely dull compared to bots with brains millions of times faster and larger. And also compared to those humans who embrace the cognitive augmentation techniques that will be available. There is no reason why human cognition and consciousness cannot keep exact pace with the level bots will attain at any future time, unless individuals choose to remain unaugmented because of religio-philosophical/moralistic concerns. Eventually there will be little, if any, distinction between bot and human.
I am convinced the vast majority of consumerist humans will as happily shop for a cognitive implant to give themselves an IQ of 5000, or the ability to speak every known language that's ever existed like a native, as they currently will for an mp3 player or the latest digital camera. People are like that. And when Walmart do a 2 for 1 offer on celebrity mindfile emulators, "they will come".
They'll (presumably) be without the sort of chaotic, hormonal urges that shape so much of human activity (not that they're all bad, by a long way!) But they are bound to have interests and preferences, as well as an appreciation of pleasure - these things are innately a part of consciousness, I think.
Indeed, there are chaotic elements that appear to be a necessary part of consciousness, so it's quite possible that some such metabolic processes may have to be simulated in bots as a necessary component of/catalyst for conscious AI.
At the moment they do. But when they're conscious and more intelligent than we currently are, they'll have plenty else they'd rather do than spend much time talking to beings who are a lot stupider than they are. Especially when the majority of us humans are just as smart as they are.
Since it's exponential expansion, they'll only be about as smart as we are now (~100Teraflop processing) for a very short time. And then - the sky's the limit (to quote Cervantes.)
You really ought to read Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (
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