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World Dream Forum
Long-term thinktank for discussing the possible worlds we would love to live in. | |
We face a risk of someone starting an evolution experiment in the wild with super-intelligent drones endowed with survival instincts and goals of self-preservation. However, if we define our goal, I think we don't need a strong A.I., we just need an optimization system solving our Dream=World(X) for
optimal actions X.
Sure, sooner or later, if we created a strong A.I. it may acquire high moral values, but it may be that this would happen not without a significant destruction to the original medium in the "Petri dish" -- that is us :)
The "World Dream Forum" thinktank would be a website, where we address this issue in a form of a public forum, where everyone could publish the utopian worlds they conceive and would desire, and others could comment and vote. Hopefully, this would result in a large set of worlds, the features of which we could analyze, and generalize to arrive at the definition for perfect world we all want. Then we would only need to develop the optimization systems to automatically optimize for our goal, rather than experimenting with something what could wipe us out.
And,... we could always refer to our common ideal, when we judge an idea, rather than grounding our judgement on a vague personal perception.
SL4 mailing list
http://sl4.org
was a mailing list to discuss technlogical singularity. Was discussing how to handle the things that "could happen" (not stressing on what we wish happen.) [Mindey, Sep 03 2014]
Everything List
http://www.weidai.com/everything.html
is a mailing list to discuss all possible worlds (without stressing the set of desired worlds.), it's both an advantage and a shortcoming that the discussion is rather technical. [Mindey, Sep 03 2014]
Halfbakery:
TrueWorld
An attempt to think of one of the idealizations for a world. (This one would require the exploration of "all possible" before we could actually make it.) [Mindey, Sep 03 2014]
Absolutely Everybody ...
http://www.azlyrics...utelyeverybody.html
... not [pertinax, Sep 05 2014]
Cantor
http://en.wikipedia...s_diagonal_argument
[pertinax, Sep 05 2014]
Youtube:
https://www.youtube...watch?v=RZ3ahBm3dCk
Kurzweil Interviews Minsky: Is Singularity Near? (Jul 14, 2014) [Mindey, Sep 06 2014]
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I can't see this working in New York. |
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Why so? What would work in New York? :) |
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//definition for perfect world we all want// |
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I think you may be underestimating the extent to which people have different wants, even deep down. |
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[pertinax], "Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics." (~Dean Schlicter). |
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I think these wants are the same, if we think deep enough about them... |
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// I think these wants are the same, if we think
deep enough about them // |
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Statements like this scare me. Now maybe if you
get philosophical enough, you could justify that
statement, but by that time it's not going to
translate into anything useful for making practical
decisions. |
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What's scary is that some people do seem to have
the belief that everyone has the same basic
desires. Then they project their own desires on
everyone else and work toward those goals
without any thought about leaving people the
freedom to choose other paths. |
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So unless you have more clarification as to what
level of desires we all share, I'll give this a big [-]
because I have no desire to work towards a world
catering to only one set of goals. |
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Well, [Mindey], if we're talking mathematics, may I say "Cantor diagonalization"? In other words, what if what some person wanted was not just, contingently, not what others wanted, but, explicitly, "not what others wanted"? |
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Who would want a thing like that? Well, since I happen to reading his biography at the moment, I suggest Jean Genet. That is - in his earlier years, at least - Genet made a conscious point of being Evil. He didn't just break rules. He made it his rule, to break rules. |
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Now you might say "Aha! What such a person really wants is attention, which is the same thing everyone wants", but you'd be wrong. You'd be right if we were talking about, say, Jake and Dinos Chapman. Probably also if Aleister Crowley, but not if Genet. Up until his epiphany in a railway carriage in, I think, 1953, he was a genuine psychopath, not a show-off pretending to be a psychopath. He could have gone on the telly, but he chose not to. |
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Vanessa Amorosi (see link) was wrong. |
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Going factually deeply into anything requires measurement.
Mathematics is, by default, the language of measurement. |
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If everyone wants their own thing, ultimately there has to be space and
resources for that. Therefore everyone has to work for the collective
environment or no one gets their individual path. If overlaps occur
compromise or domination/submission ensue. Though, with a
FTL drive, you are free to inflict your wants on extraterrestrial cultures. |
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// I think these wants are the same, if we think deep enough about them // |
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[scad mientist], what scares me, is that people seem to ignore the basic facts of physics (like the fact we are all bound with physical forces forming an indivisible whole) and origin (like the evolutionary descendence from in the tree of life), and even the quite obvious want of existence in general (yes, existence of entities) that comes from evolution that wiped out the things that had no propensity (aka desire) to exist (i.e., suicidal). |
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So, here you have one -- the desire of existence in general, which is common to all of us, as it may include even the desire of the exitence of non-existence. |
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Moreover, you can narrow this down a little bit, which I tried to do in the link [Halfbakery: TrueWorld], where the word "Truly" is supposed to imply something close to -- "I, as the Everything, as well as a every part from every perspective..." |
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// what if what some person wanted was not just, contingently, not what others wanted, but, explicitly, "not what others wanted"? // |
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[pertinax], then quite surely he didn't realize that he didn't want it truly. ;) A formulation or postulation of a desire is not equivalent to the actual desire, which the person would eventually have if he knew everything. Often we think that we want something, but we don't know if it's what we truly want. A leader of a country wants X, but does he really want it? |
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Not to digress, the World Dream Forum would be an attempt to define a more concrete ideal, which would be based on the highly abstract one that everyone who thinks abstractly enough can agree with. |
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// Vanessa Amorosi (see link) was wrong. // |
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[pertinax], of course wrong. I guess Vanessa Amorosi was not thinking deeply enough. |
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[Mindey], have you been taking something recently? |
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[MaxwellBuchanan], like physics? |
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I certainly do. But don't dodge the question. |
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[MaxwellBuchanan], well, yes. |
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It may help. Of course, it may not. |
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A coin is probably heads, or probably tails. Zero information. |
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I've never claimed to provide information. |
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How about being a bit more productive: |
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what's wrong with what I've said above? |
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What do I need to be helped about? |
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Is the wide perception of self is wrong? |
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Is the self-centric perception is right? |
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I don't think local optimization is very right. |
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I think global optimization is right. |
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The problem with global optimization is that almost
everybody is a local somewhere. |
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True. What can we do about it? ... |
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Local optimisation seems to work. |
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It seem to work, but does it work the best? And will it continue to work? It seems to work... but mainly because there's enough noise to mingle the local optimisations around, for the whole thing not to entangle into some superlocal optimum like a major economic depression or a major war... |
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Once that noise is gone (though we'd expect it not to, due to the laws of thermodynamics, yet it may still happen, because intelligence and life is, by definition, anti-entropic, and so would the super-intelligent drones and other A.I. creatures be), we'd have increasingly ordered world, where machines are planning the future of the whole Earth like we plan the future for a production plant. |
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I'm pretty sure the "World Dream Forum" is already baked, secretly... but [to a large degree] I don't think it should be secret, because secrets imply local optimization that may be against those who don't collude in secrecy. |
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//we'd have increasingly ordered world, where
machines are planning the future of the whole Earth
like we plan the future for a production plant.// |
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The problem with trying to make the world a better
place is that everybody wants to make their world a
better place. The result it chaos and inequality -
rather like a pile of ants all trying to climb over
eachother. |
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On the other hand, the ant pile does get higher over
time. |
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Frankly, I think I'd rather be alive now than in 1990,
or 1980 or 1970 (god - those shirts!). I would be
willing to bet [8th]'s best antimacassar that most
people feel the same way. Our ant pile has been
getting taller since, oh, maybe 100 AD. |
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Quite conceivable that within our lifetimes, [MaxwellBuchanan]! (enjoy the youtube link) |
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I'll take that antimacassar and raise you his subscription to "Nude Hunting for Gimps". |
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Given those options, I'd go back to the 90s, when people had jobs and the halfbakery and the internet were almost the same thing. |
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[4and20], so you are saying that you'd take the antimacassar and go back to the 90s... Hmm. But you're not in the 90s, and travel back in time (unlike the travel to future) is not yet practicable. |
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I was thinking this forum might be for cross cultural sharing of dreams, and consequent better understanding of one another. Because I had this dream I was eating the hugest marshmallow ever. And when I woke up, my pillow was gone. Talk about needing to take a physic! |
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[bungston] - be careful with that joke, it's incredibly
old. |
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[bungston], I was laughing out loud... Until [MaxwellBuchanan] made me consider googling it. |
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// But you're not in the 90s, and travel back in time (unlike the travel to future) is not yet practicable. // |
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It depends what you call travel and what you call the 90s. |
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I believe that through the miracle of capitalism an
almost complete global want list can be compiled,
and I believe the existence of such a list would be
beneficial. |
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First compile a generally acceptable list of wants.
They would include such things as "I want everyone
to be able to eat all they want and not get fat" and
"I want everyone to be able to have a hobby". Then
offer those who disagree a trade-off. Perhaps Bob
wants people to be forced to eat less if they don't
want to get fat, but he'll accept the provision as
long as he can add "everyone has access to exercise
machines". The more Bobs willing to make that
trade the more complete the list is. Then you can
trade between trades. Maybe Julie wouldn't agree
to the exercise machine but is willing to accept it
in lieu of her "overeaters get electric shocks" want
(a less severe lack than no exercise provision at all)
as long as she can have "spanking children is
permitted in certain circumstances". Enough
discussion can yield a highly popular definition of
utopia. |
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Alternatively each person can be given their own
set of rules and environment and if they want to
believe other people are forced to do things they
can be deceived in that manner. The desires of the
most hateful and vile power addict can be fulfilled
without harming anyone else as long as she's
supplied with enough artificially generated snuff
porn and told it's real. |
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//quite surely he didn't realize that he didn't want it truly// |
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Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong and possibly incorrect. |
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Think about it: a man writes "I want to do X". Witnesses then observe him doing X. Who is entitled to tell him, or anyone else, that he didn't "truly" want it? What does it even *mean* to say that he didn't "truly" want it? |
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His "unconscious mind" didn't want it? There's no such thing as an unconscious mind. |
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Smart, sophisticated people can read the "true" wants of dumb, inadequate people? Well, in that case, you're saying you're smarter than Jean Genet - not impossible, but a large claim. |
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All this matters hugely, because of what [scad-mientist] said. He's right to be scared. Statements like "he didn't realize that he didn't want it truly" contain the seeds of profoundly sinister political developments. |
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Deep down, at the brainstem level, everyone just wants to breathe, and almost half of politicians understand that. |
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[pertinax] - I could not agree more. |
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[pertinax], if you say you want a new fancy house, and you pursue it, do you really want it? Maybe you just want those feelings, not the house. |
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People live and act with limited information about the world, and limited ability to forecast the future, and limited perception of self (which doesn't end at their backyards) to be able to accurately compare alternative futures. |
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// His "unconscious mind" didn't want it? There's no such thing as an unconscious mind. // |
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// Smart, sophisticated people can read the "true" wants of dumb, inadequate people? // |
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Neither smart nor dumb can know what they "truly" want. That's the problem. I'd hope that a world forum about the world's dream could help address it. |
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Or to put is another way: what do we mean when we say "want"? |
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// Deep down, at the brainstem level, everyone
just wants to breathe // |
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Actually I'd go one level deeper. I really don't care
about breathing. My brain stem takes care of it so
I don't have to think about it all the time. What
every person wants is to minimize pain and/or
maximize pleasure. We keep breathing because
various pain indicators start going off in the brain
when we stop. Interestingly enough, we will make
trade-offs between present and the probability of
future pain and/or pleasure |
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The thing is that each person receives different
amounts of pain or pleasure from the same event.
They put different values on current versus future
pain/pleasure, and have different risk tolerances. |
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//you say you want a new fancy house, and you pursue it, do you really want it?// |
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Well, [mindey], I may be lying, of course. And I may have other wants, which may or may not conflict with wanting a new fancy house. And I may want the house as a means to another end (which is not the same as not wanting it). But no-one else knows, better than I do, what I want, just as no-one else knows better than [scad_mientist] what [scad_mientist] wants. |
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Here's the hard part: //There is.// |
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Can we improve on the exchange "Oh no there isn't!" "Oh yes there is!", etc., ad nauseam? Let's try... |
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I take it you know that the idea of the unconscious mind is part of the theory of psychoanalysis. No controversy there, right? |
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I imagine you must also be at least dimly aware that psychoanalysis is now widely regarded as a discredited pseudo-science. A lot of people out there have sort-of accepted this, but have not yet dared to work through the full implications of it. Before I start posting links to all sorts of things you may already know about, perhaps you'd like to set out how far your thinking has got on this subject. |
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You may think it's off-topic, but it isn't. It goes to the heart of why progressive thought has been stuck in such a rut lately, and why so little good big dreaming is happening. Present company excepted. |
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Well, *that* seems to have killed the conversation. Pity. |
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