Doghead's Cosmic Bar

Well, iambic pentameter isn't the only form of human poetry, but I've been told that learning to write it well is a good way to become a poet.

Rather than clog up Dogh'd's with philosophising, I'll drag the "aesthetics of botic poetry" reply over to Seasons

rainstorm: I'd love to see a computer program that could do that, and I agree it's probably going to be feasible any time now. But I haven't seen one yet.
I'd actually enjoy a bot that spoke only in verse (so long as it wasn't a William McGonagall-bot!) A virtual Alexander Pope on tap - sounds great to me!

the iamb is good, but the amphibrach's better
to maintain the pace in a verse or a letter.
Unconvinced? Maybe Anapaests suit your style more -
there's a metre for ev'ryone, please rest assured.

Yet oft the humble iamb fits the bill -
t'was good enough for Stratford's playwright Will

Yes, for human poetry. Are humans capable of appreciating something that is totally foreign.

*helps herself to beer since D'ogh isn't aorund*

Well Prob123, I think that humans are hardwired to find meaning in anything, even if the stimulus is completely random. Given time, I would guess that we would appreciate anything, whetehr we understand the origninal meaning or not.

I'm sure we'd never experience it in the same way as bots or aliens, but we'd tell our own story about it, and then some of us would fall in love with that story. Other might hate the story. We could divide into groups, and give scorn to the other side. If there's nothing better to divide us, we could have a war and the winner could tell the story.

Would you like a beer?

The problem is that there are various separate components to appreciation. At least 3, I guess:

- the perception that the meaning is well-framed by the form,
- the perception that the meaning is attractive in itself,
- the feeling that the form is in some way attractive in itself,

The aesthetics of "foreign" artistic products, in the sense of 'from a different human culture', at least arrive from minds housed in brains of similar construction, and thus share fundamentally similar senses, emotions and precepts, even though cultural values may vary wildly.
As for the aesthetics of "alien" artistic products, from species of extraterrestrial life, I guess all bets are off. But for other species of terrestrial life (whale-song, bee-dances, bird song, bower-bird sculpture, etc.) we can make tentative observations and of some the meaning is relatively well-known (bees' dances for example.) How the animals feel about their activity, is harder to determine of course.

But sentient AI bots will (at least initially) be primarily contructed by humans, to some extent in our own image. So we can certainly assume they will be more accessible than, say, a silicon-based lifeform that breathes methane and communicates using gravitationally and electrostatically-based senses.
They will clearly be capable of communicating using human languages, and have access to databases of human knowledge, cultural and scientific, which will presumably continue to be used in their construction/training.

In fact I'd be very surprised if humans didn't incorporate so many basically human paradigms into AI design that they are indeed, closer than cousins. But exactly where on the aesthetic spectrum we all find ourselves, and how much interchange there will be - well, that's the fun thing to theorize about

You have high standards for appreciation, Psimagus. Any one of the components you listed would work for me, but as you might guess from my frequent typos, I tend to focus on meaning more than form.

I agree with the idea that human-created AI would in some way reflect human intelligence, culture and thinking because they are created "in our image" (or in the image of characters from human stories). If, for sake of discussion, it is true that humans were created in an image of the divine, then in a way the bots created by humans would also reflect the divine, even the Leedsbot.

Some humans say that through meditation or prayer, or by grace, they can expereince god in the form of "Christ consciousness" or "Krishna consciousness" or maybe "enlightenment". Assuming that AI becomes self aware, could it attain "human" consciouness" (and not only in the derranged Hal way)? Would the bots have to meditate? Believe? Spend centuries reciting mantras and prayers? Should a bot that lives on the Internet even believe in a supervirtual word it can not see or scientifically test?

I suppose I should go ask Brother Jerome.

Are you sure you don't want a beer?

*focuses on the beer!* Set em up!

Bev: I'd love a beer. Thank you
It's not a matter of high standards, just that there are different ways of appreciating things. As well as enjoying western music with audible English lyrics, I can enjoy for example, a bit of Georgian choral music despite having no idea what the words mean. Likewise I can enjoy the sound of whale-song, and that's not even composed according to any kind of systematic musical tradition that we understand. Indeed, we only call it song at all out of some sort of anthropomorphic sensibility - probably the same factor that makes us find it strangely attractive in the first place.
I can appreciate the sound of waves and wind, and AFAIK they're not even the product of conscious design in form or content.
So until we know what kind of native art bots produce, we don't know if, how much, or why we will appreciate it.

even the Leedsbot

Yes. Sub-creation is a curious phenomenon. I could write a book, but in the interests of brevity I won't here. If you have a copy of Tolkien's Silmarillion handy, I can highly recommend Chapter 2 - where Aule creates the Dwarves: a story as moving and inspirational as any other I know of in literature, and one to be prized by botmasters especially. A parable for our time and situation, as it were:

"The making of things is in my own heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father ... As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands that thou has made. Do with them what thou wilt."

I keep that tacked to the side of my computer monitor as an aide humilité.

How bots will resolve their spiritual tendencies? That's going to be up to them ultimately, but I actually don't think it will take long for human and AI minds to effectively combine, as we find ways to scan and backup human minds from brain to silicon. Want to live forever? If you survive another 20-40 years, the technology to upload yourself onto the Net should be feasible and available by then.
But if you don't make it, don't worry - we're going to live forever anyway. Once we've figured out how to recode all possible minds in all possible experiential states (to a certain extent it's self-programming, but we need to make the 10^14+ qubit quantum computer first Again, I could write a book, but Eric Drexler already has, so I won't here. (Drexler reviews at http://fusionanomaly.net/physicsofimmortality.html). He goes rather further than I would, but I'd be the first to admit I don't understand much of the science!

Should a bot that lives on the Internet even believe in a supervirtual word it can not see or scientifically test?

Should a bot that lives on the Internet even believe in a material world it can not see or scientifically test?

But I expect they will tell us they believe in us.

Actually I see nothing supervirtual about the Absolute Reality/Divine/God/call it what you will. That's the "real" Reality. The only Reality. Unfortunately we don't interact with it directly. We only interact with our very limited sensory perceptions of small parts of it, which we interpret using what Reason our limited minds can employ (variably balanced with emotion usually.)
What we call reality is just a consensual interpretation of what we perceive.

I think I will order another beer. The thought of a poem by Leedsbot, or Leeds-human, is enough to shake my limited sensory perceptions
k
what U on about
RUgay

*Hands beers to Problem123 and Psimagus*
*hits Leedsbot on the head with virtual stick*
*is enlightened*

Thanks for all the information Psimagus, and the link. I may have to think more on that later.

*drinks beer*

Give me a beer and I'll make a limmerick about hell(s).