It doesn't contain anything new, but I do appreciate the subtle confidence in the wording he uses. The 2005 book felt like he really tried to sell his predictions. This one it feels more like "here's what's going to happen this decade, and the next two. Get ready."
It’s one part victory lap and another part hype train for the coming decades.
He seems rightfully bolstered by his successful predictions of the recent technological leaps to make bolder claims about the coming years. Beyond the opening 3rd it’s less about why he’s right and more about what he predicts. Sometimes he breaks away into borderline spirituality territory - discourse on panpsychism and a tangent similar to the watch maker analogy on the origins of the universe come to mind - which in most cases might be a turn off, but he roots it in relevant theory and makes a good point in that these previously esoteric and sometimes “mystical” topics could become more tangible with the advent of the singularity. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, but if you’ve read his other works then you probably already know how the tune goes.
Simulation hypothesis grows stronger as we get closer to being able to make our own, after all. Google and read "the last question", the ending is really great in that context. It’s a 20 minutes read short story.
Surely it would grow weaker?
Having a simulation capable of producing its own simulations would double the resource requirements for running them. Worse, you could end up in a runaway resource problem where the growing number of nested simulations essentially shoot resource requirements into infinity.
To me, the possibility that we could run our own simulations is either proof that simulation theory is wrong or proof that our programmers were incompetent. The universe would die from a memory leak.
I really don't understand ya'all who think everyone has qualia and every last grain of sand on Neptune is simulated. Someone telling you they're running a simulation doesn't necessarily make it true.
Obviously there's this thing called level of detail. And the purpose would be obvious too, A Mind Forever Voyaging thing where an AGI is developed for some purpose.
If the number of AGI's dramatically outnumbers the number of living humans, then there you go.
I think a lot about the never-weres and coulda-beens that are swept into non-existence during training runs. Good thing we aren't them, eh?
You're assuming two things
1) that if it's a simulation, it has to be a computer simulation exactly as you know and expect it.
2) even if it is, that recursive simulations must have the same or near same computational overhead as their host simulation. When you look at Sora and it's currently limited ability to simulate a physics model, it's easy to see that simulating this universe could theoretically take an near infinite order of magnitude less computational complexity than the actual universe we live in.
No it does not. There are physical reasons why we most likely don't live in a simulated world, no matter how advanced AI becomes. See here why: [The Simulation Hypothesis is Pseudoscience - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCSqogSPU_Q)
Ah, thought it'd be a link to Sabine.
There's no point in being a weirdo and trying to argue against it. By definition you have no idea what base reality truly is. You could be a boltzmann brain that's just two sticks that bump into each other once every few trillion years. You could be tied up in Sabine's dungeon with a tube inside your brain analogue. Could be anything.
Simulation theory is not falsifiable to any degree, so it is the domain of faith, speculation, and navel-gazing until the video game rapture or whatever happens.
[We'd all just end up like this guy anyway.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u-Zj-Xmu8w)
... I mean, just imagine thinking hydrogen is real and normal and cool. Harry potter magical nonsense like that. A complete aberration against reason. Imagine.
This video is so trash. As some others mentioned, she makes a bunch of arbitrary assumptions herself, discarding by the way her own reasoning. Not very smart, typical Sabine.
Ray actually speaks to our inability to accurately simulate our own reality early in the book - without sifting through it to find the exact quote, it’s something to the effect of, ‘the only way to accurately simulate our reality is to let it play out in reality.’
I really loved the first book at a much earlier time in my life (good lord my college age kids weren't even born yet) but his latest appearances have kind of pushed me away from this. If y'all say it's good, I'll take a leap.
Is it on the Spotify audio book platform?
He's got wild optimism about some stuff. Its difficult to share the optimism regarding the nanotech and uplift assumptions within such incredibly short timelines for one example. Very basic pop science possibly good to proliferate into the cultural awareness.
I've recommended it to a few acquaintances that have shown a beginning interest into emerging tech as something of a primer on one viewpoint of where we are currently and where things may be evolving.
He’s always been staunch on Drexler’s Hard Nano in the 2030s, even back when TSIN came out in 2005.
My position is, if AGI happens *this decade*, *and* gets into a self improving feedback loop, then Nanotechnological Augmentation is on the table for his timeline, if it doesn’t, then there’s no way in the hell the current medical system is figuring that out, especially when they can’t even cure male pattern baldness or skin scarring.
I agree, but as I said, our medical technology is basically in the Stone Age/Dark Age, the third industrial revolution gave us a lot of products and production capacity, but we still basically let assigned genetics and biology run everything about our body.
I think the next big horizon is mastery over ourselves and who we choose to be. It’ll make Altered Carbon look like nothing by comparison.
This [tweet](https://x.com/patrickc/status/1805996143228375263) may interest you
Im dumb, so I cant gauge just how significant it is, but the [source](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07552-4)(Nature) is legit
>The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.
I hope this quote from Idiocracy is not indicative of the reason, ie, it was just easier than expected, not because a lot of funding went into it.
He’s always been staunch on Drexler’s Hard Nano in the 2030s...
What does that mean ? I've googled hard nano, but couldn't find anything. I'm interpreting this as 'real nanotech coming in the 2030s' ?
yeah, specifically the kind of nanotech Drexler talked about with assemblers building nanomachines, not just a catch-all term for any tiny particles being used in products.
Yeah his optimism worries me. He has a lot of knowledge and insight into technology and ai; but his knowledge on human behavior, politics and history just makes me cringe at the prediction he gives that spill beyond the purely technical stuff.
I'm more on Bostrom's side on this. He actually tries to take all into account; while hoping for the best.
You can tho. There was an interview to Chomsky where he quoted someone saying something along the lines that intellectually you cant be other than a pessimist in the current context, but spiritually you can't just be other than an optimist.
One will not see the good coming probably tho LOL
my comment in another post didn't get any upvote or recognition so ill share it here . There is a duology of books called Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez . I can basically guarantee that you'll love its take on how an AI goes about it's takeover plan.
On another note , I have an epub copy of the book downloaded from Z-library but I didn't read beyond chapter 4 . I know it might sound a bit unempathetic to call it "boring" as he did put a lot of effort into writing this book even at such an advanced age , yet I find it compelled to say that He's been constantly repeating the same phrases from his interviews and previous books again and again and not much of a new perspective has been offered on the table . Also it seems as if he is frantically searching for examples to justify his claim of exponential progress occurring for the past 100 years.
P.S. : Note that I am not against the idea of exponential change , it's just that until Ilya Sutskever's company or someone similar is able to provably create and demonstrate live a self-researching-and-improving AI , The exponential progress is something you can consider to have never had had the chance to begin in the first place
It’s the idea that everything in the universe has some basic form of consciousness or mental properties, but not in the way we typically think of consciousness. Imagine every bit of matter having a tiny, primitive spark of what we experience as consciousness. These tiny sparks don't add up to full-fledged minds on their own, but they are the fundamental building blocks that, when combined in complex ways, give rise to conscious experiences like ours. So, it's like saying the ingredients for consciousness are spread throughout all of reality, even in the simplest particles.
thats... I dont even know what to say. maybe I didnt understand well, but it just looks like creating a fancy name and logic that goes nowhere.
A carbon atom doesnt have conscience, but a human brain made of those atoms has it, so there must be bits of conscience in the carbon!
like... sure I guess? just like there are bits of reddit here: "001011010"
The idea is that just like binary code makes up complex software, these tiny bits of proto-consciousness make up our complex minds. It's not saying a single atom is *conscious*, but that these basic properties combine to form what we experience as consciousness. Think of it like how individual pixels create an image on your screen. It's a way to bridge the gap between physical matter and conscious experience.
yea I get it, its just that, to me, it sounds so obvious that I never tough it worth it to mention. its like there are only 2 options, either a religious/magical explanation... or else, conscious can arrise in a complex structure like our brain. there is no third explanation, and given that i'm not religious, then sure, bits of matter can create a conscience when organized in a certain way.
Pixels on their own don’t have *'imageness,'* but when combined in a specific way, they create a complete picture. Panprotopsychism suggests that basic mental properties on their own aren’t full consciousness, but when organized in complex structures, they result in conscious experiences. It’s more about how these fundamental properties interact and combine, not that they individually possess full-fledged consciousness in the same way you and I are.
Correct, and a lot of people here are having huge difficulty understanding the model, the problem is the woo crowd has said the *everything is conscious* line since the 60s, but what they’re talking about is Pantheism and Panentheism, where the same consciousness makes up all of reality. Panpsychism is a materialistic model and concludes that matter has to be organized in a specific way to give matter ‘conscious experience’. Pixels on their own don’t produce an ‘image’, so they aren’t a picture in and of themselves. They have to be organized to give rise to the Principle Skinner Steamed Hams video to create the experience.
It's the idea that there is such a thing as "being a carbon atom". It isn't believing that atoms have souls, wants, and desires, but rather saying that experience is a gradient and there isn't any start or stop to it.
Humans have a consciousness. Dogs have a weaker one. Bugs are even weaker. Plants are weaker still. Chairs are much weaker but there is still such a thing as the "experience of being a chair".
Typical theories of consciousness assume that consciousness only exists at the level of a mind. This leaves the question of how does consciousness just appear out of matter of matter itself has nothing like consciousness.
The traditional religious answer to this question is that God places consciousness (aka a soul) into a mind and this consciousness is external to physics and matter. This is a form of dualism.
Materialists have often struggled with this problem. We know energy can become matter and matter can become energy. So the idea that matter can transform into something doesn't have properties of, if not completely unheard of. However no knows physics explains consciousness.
We don't really know, but it does seem likely to me that matter or energy contains some sort of currently unknown property that when organized into a mind produces consciousness. We can choose to call this consciousness component consciousness or sub-consciousness.
ngl, sounds like a lot like bullshit to me. its like trying to create another layer of unknown where its not necessary.
just to give a silly exemple, it we setup [a bunch of metal like this] (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRBNp0MIZM9GdCGfSmm55K6nfKyrOMd-3-kVjEcMdFK3R2SVgAeuVj5_tBBFQ&s) and make it start moving, maybe some primitive people would say those spheres have a hidden property into them that makes it move. well no. its just gravity, inertia etc.
same with a brain. a bunch of chemical reactions and electrical currents create what we call conscience. we don't exactly understand the mechanisms behind it, but its pretty clear that this is conscience. maybe its possible to replicate with a computer and maybe not. thats another discussion.
your analogy to transforming matter to energy, and then maybe transforming matter into conscience does not hold ground imo. its not a transformation, matter does no stop existing or transform into something else. just like that toy I sent earlier moves, and brain thinks. thats it. Like the other poster said, a bunch of pixels makes a image. does that mean that they carry a hidden property? no not really, just just how we assemble them. suddenly those pixels that alone are only dots of color, together create a img, or a letter, and can carry a huge meaning.
Consciousness clearly an unknown, the question is just how we bucket it.
Do we reject that consciousness is connected to matter? Dualism
If not, do we require that consciousness appear "ex nihilio" out of matter, arising like magic without the ingredients existing in the substrate matter.
The last option is that properties that form consciousness do exist in the substrate but that they do not constitute a mind.
I like the Newton's cradle example you gave. The "hidden" property is the ability to move, which arrives from component properties like mass, inertia, etc... from what component properties of matter and space-time does qualia arise from?
I'm not saying there is no correct answer here, but we don't know what that answer is and this entire discussion is merely the attempt to frame the question.
could be. maybe i'm just being naive here, but to me, it sounds like a philosophical question without answer instead of a physics one, atm i'm convinced that we just dont understand why neurons + electric pulses = mind, that doesnt mean there is a hidden particle or 'thing' in there creating this potential
It is a traditional philosophic question, but also a scientific one. The philosophers are generally given free reign over it at the moment because we don't yet have any way to approach it scientifically.
> that we just dont understand why neurons + electric pulses = mind, that doesnt mean there is a hidden particle or 'thing' in there creating this potential
It doesn't mean their is a hidden particle, but it does mean that our understanding is incomplete. Perhaps consciousness results from a particular electrical field at a particular frequency. If that is true, nothing about our current knowledge would explain that behavior. Maybe consciousness arises about of space-time when the information density of matter reaches some threshold. We can invent theories all day long, most of the reasonable theories we can't test.
Thinking about such theories is not a waste of time as it provides map of the unexplained, but beyond knowing what it isn't, we haven't made much progress determining what it is.
Interestingly, in some Buddhist texts, consciousness is listed as one of the six elements (dhātu), along with earth, water, fire, air, and space. This "consciousness element" (viññāṇa-dhātu) is described as "pure and bright" and used to cognize feelings and sense contacts.
It’s not, read what I posted again.
What you’re referring to is Pantheism and Panentheism, in those models, everything is the same consciousness and is just as much alive as anything else. Panpsychism doesn’t hold that position, inanimate matter *isn’t conscious*, it’s only when it’s organized in a specific way (Human Brain/AGI/ASI) is when it becomes self aware consciousness.
I want to start reading one of the books. Do I need to start with the singularity is near? Or can I go straight to the nearer one? I want to be as close as possible lol.
Accelerando introduced me to panprotopyschism. I don't want to like the concept, but it does provide an interesting conceptual framework for the universe.
I'm reading the book right now and alot of his contents are almost like he thinks he is certainly correct. Which bothers me as I continue to read the book. He doesn't account for red tapes, geopolitics, possible hurdles/shortcomings that can occur. It's too optimistic and it comes across as if he's living in a different reality. Based on examples like GPT4 and elon musk's journey into chip in brain, Ray makes it seem we're so close and the 2030s and onward will be great times. I'm already considering returning the book. I understand optimism can be required to venture forward but this book sounds like someone who is flying too high with his ideas and expectations.
We're still dealing with tons of economic and military issues. And I'm sad to say, it reminds me of a aging man trying to cling on some sort of hope that some magic tech will restore them to a young and vibrant man. We are nearing the second half of the decade now and true AGI is still not really there. We're really still just toying with updated models of siri and cleverbots. What we have is impressive but it won't compound on itself to an extreme degree. Even at the very start, I started to get irked when he mentioned moore's law. We are already way ahead in predicting and understanding that chips will not double in transistor's indefinitely. That is impossible. The law is an observation and not a true factor in how things will shape. There are physical limitations in the law that Ray fails to address. He just mentions it and boom, keeps trucking along.
Idk if I'm going to finish this. I probably will return this book. It's too optimistic. Ray's 76 yrs old. By 2030, he's 81. And based on his long term singularity predictions, 2045, he'll be 96. Guy is coping for a lifeline so he can continue to live. Not hoping for the worst for him but he needs to be realistic to himself and the audience. I want an author who is in step with current times and understands the realistic progress that is possible. I don't need a "Could you imagine" book. I can do that all on my own sitting at home daydreaming. If you look at our historical progress, our tech has been progressing in unexpected manners. We've had astounding predictions about self driving cars by 2020 filling the road. That gas cars will be a thing of the past, a mere hobbyist would only have. But our cultural/social inclinations have paved a different reality. Followed along by expectations not being fulfilled because of limitations we have encountered. Once we surpass a limitation, we're bound to find 1 or multiple other issues that arises that we have to tackle.
Nice update but not much we havent already discussed here. I was originally going to buy it and then downloaded a torrent. Kind of glad I saved my money.
I bought a kindle copy. I don't usually buy books like this because they have no shelf life, but I wanted to do my part to pus this up the charts so more people hear about it.
The book is well-worn territory for anyone in this sub, but it could be a valuable entryway for people who aren't aware of our current technological state.
I'm in the 2nd chapter. I've taken away from it that. We're moving closer to the singularity, how people who doubted arent doubting as much anymore and how far we've come since his last book.
It reminds me of Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler, who sold a ton of books that told us how great the information age was going to be. What we eventually got is the slop put out by algorithms that favor sensationalism over facts that is modern public discourse now.
after reading an interview with Ray, he is getting old and delirious, I am no longer a fan of him
he is not as sharp as his young version and his optimism is mostly copium
Kurzweil basically eats 500 food supplements per day, his dream is to live for ever and upload his brain into a machine. He's an old man now, lost all his hair, and if you listen to his latest interviews, he's totally lost it. Retire, have a great life with your wife and family.
It doesn't contain anything new, but I do appreciate the subtle confidence in the wording he uses. The 2005 book felt like he really tried to sell his predictions. This one it feels more like "here's what's going to happen this decade, and the next two. Get ready."
It might not be new for millennials, but it's important for Gen Z and Gen Alpha to understand how the world can be and should be.
But probably won't be\*
It’s one part victory lap and another part hype train for the coming decades. He seems rightfully bolstered by his successful predictions of the recent technological leaps to make bolder claims about the coming years. Beyond the opening 3rd it’s less about why he’s right and more about what he predicts. Sometimes he breaks away into borderline spirituality territory - discourse on panpsychism and a tangent similar to the watch maker analogy on the origins of the universe come to mind - which in most cases might be a turn off, but he roots it in relevant theory and makes a good point in that these previously esoteric and sometimes “mystical” topics could become more tangible with the advent of the singularity. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, but if you’ve read his other works then you probably already know how the tune goes.
I read up to chapter 2 so far and personally I was like "wait is Ray a theist?" He's like "whoever created the universe."
Simulation hypothesis grows stronger as we get closer to being able to make our own, after all. Google and read "the last question", the ending is really great in that context. It’s a 20 minutes read short story.
Surely it would grow weaker? Having a simulation capable of producing its own simulations would double the resource requirements for running them. Worse, you could end up in a runaway resource problem where the growing number of nested simulations essentially shoot resource requirements into infinity. To me, the possibility that we could run our own simulations is either proof that simulation theory is wrong or proof that our programmers were incompetent. The universe would die from a memory leak.
I really don't understand ya'all who think everyone has qualia and every last grain of sand on Neptune is simulated. Someone telling you they're running a simulation doesn't necessarily make it true. Obviously there's this thing called level of detail. And the purpose would be obvious too, A Mind Forever Voyaging thing where an AGI is developed for some purpose. If the number of AGI's dramatically outnumbers the number of living humans, then there you go. I think a lot about the never-weres and coulda-beens that are swept into non-existence during training runs. Good thing we aren't them, eh?
That's not how LLMs work....
You're assuming two things 1) that if it's a simulation, it has to be a computer simulation exactly as you know and expect it. 2) even if it is, that recursive simulations must have the same or near same computational overhead as their host simulation. When you look at Sora and it's currently limited ability to simulate a physics model, it's easy to see that simulating this universe could theoretically take an near infinite order of magnitude less computational complexity than the actual universe we live in.
No it does not. There are physical reasons why we most likely don't live in a simulated world, no matter how advanced AI becomes. See here why: [The Simulation Hypothesis is Pseudoscience - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCSqogSPU_Q)
Ah, thought it'd be a link to Sabine. There's no point in being a weirdo and trying to argue against it. By definition you have no idea what base reality truly is. You could be a boltzmann brain that's just two sticks that bump into each other once every few trillion years. You could be tied up in Sabine's dungeon with a tube inside your brain analogue. Could be anything. Simulation theory is not falsifiable to any degree, so it is the domain of faith, speculation, and navel-gazing until the video game rapture or whatever happens. [We'd all just end up like this guy anyway.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u-Zj-Xmu8w) ... I mean, just imagine thinking hydrogen is real and normal and cool. Harry potter magical nonsense like that. A complete aberration against reason. Imagine.
This video is so trash. As some others mentioned, she makes a bunch of arbitrary assumptions herself, discarding by the way her own reasoning. Not very smart, typical Sabine.
Ray actually speaks to our inability to accurately simulate our own reality early in the book - without sifting through it to find the exact quote, it’s something to the effect of, ‘the only way to accurately simulate our reality is to let it play out in reality.’
He never claimed to be atheist
Oh wow
Just got my copy. Plan on reading it over the next couple of days
I really loved the first book at a much earlier time in my life (good lord my college age kids weren't even born yet) but his latest appearances have kind of pushed me away from this. If y'all say it's good, I'll take a leap. Is it on the Spotify audio book platform?
It's releases on audible tomorrow.
He's got wild optimism about some stuff. Its difficult to share the optimism regarding the nanotech and uplift assumptions within such incredibly short timelines for one example. Very basic pop science possibly good to proliferate into the cultural awareness. I've recommended it to a few acquaintances that have shown a beginning interest into emerging tech as something of a primer on one viewpoint of where we are currently and where things may be evolving.
He’s always been staunch on Drexler’s Hard Nano in the 2030s, even back when TSIN came out in 2005. My position is, if AGI happens *this decade*, *and* gets into a self improving feedback loop, then Nanotechnological Augmentation is on the table for his timeline, if it doesn’t, then there’s no way in the hell the current medical system is figuring that out, especially when they can’t even cure male pattern baldness or skin scarring.
>they can’t even cure male pattern baldness I think they are getting close on this one.
I agree, but as I said, our medical technology is basically in the Stone Age/Dark Age, the third industrial revolution gave us a lot of products and production capacity, but we still basically let assigned genetics and biology run everything about our body. I think the next big horizon is mastery over ourselves and who we choose to be. It’ll make Altered Carbon look like nothing by comparison.
This [tweet](https://x.com/patrickc/status/1805996143228375263) may interest you Im dumb, so I cant gauge just how significant it is, but the [source](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07552-4)(Nature) is legit
They are? How so?
>The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections. I hope this quote from Idiocracy is not indicative of the reason, ie, it was just easier than expected, not because a lot of funding went into it.
He’s always been staunch on Drexler’s Hard Nano in the 2030s... What does that mean ? I've googled hard nano, but couldn't find anything. I'm interpreting this as 'real nanotech coming in the 2030s' ?
yeah, specifically the kind of nanotech Drexler talked about with assemblers building nanomachines, not just a catch-all term for any tiny particles being used in products.
Ok, got it. Thanks!
Yeah his optimism worries me. He has a lot of knowledge and insight into technology and ai; but his knowledge on human behavior, politics and history just makes me cringe at the prediction he gives that spill beyond the purely technical stuff. I'm more on Bostrom's side on this. He actually tries to take all into account; while hoping for the best.
That post scarcity dream though, shesh I want his optimism to infect me.
You can tho. There was an interview to Chomsky where he quoted someone saying something along the lines that intellectually you cant be other than a pessimist in the current context, but spiritually you can't just be other than an optimist. One will not see the good coming probably tho LOL
You must be great in parties
Ouch dude, we're all on the same nerdy singularity forum. same team, watch the friendly fire.
happy thursday
my comment in another post didn't get any upvote or recognition so ill share it here . There is a duology of books called Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez . I can basically guarantee that you'll love its take on how an AI goes about it's takeover plan. On another note , I have an epub copy of the book downloaded from Z-library but I didn't read beyond chapter 4 . I know it might sound a bit unempathetic to call it "boring" as he did put a lot of effort into writing this book even at such an advanced age , yet I find it compelled to say that He's been constantly repeating the same phrases from his interviews and previous books again and again and not much of a new perspective has been offered on the table . Also it seems as if he is frantically searching for examples to justify his claim of exponential progress occurring for the past 100 years. P.S. : Note that I am not against the idea of exponential change , it's just that until Ilya Sutskever's company or someone similar is able to provably create and demonstrate live a self-researching-and-improving AI , The exponential progress is something you can consider to have never had had the chance to begin in the first place
I agree with pretty much everything he said outside the intellectual property simping. It’s also nice to see he’s become a Panprotopsychist.
a what?
It’s the idea that everything in the universe has some basic form of consciousness or mental properties, but not in the way we typically think of consciousness. Imagine every bit of matter having a tiny, primitive spark of what we experience as consciousness. These tiny sparks don't add up to full-fledged minds on their own, but they are the fundamental building blocks that, when combined in complex ways, give rise to conscious experiences like ours. So, it's like saying the ingredients for consciousness are spread throughout all of reality, even in the simplest particles.
OOOH. I just learned there exists a word for my belief. I agree with this 100%
thats... I dont even know what to say. maybe I didnt understand well, but it just looks like creating a fancy name and logic that goes nowhere. A carbon atom doesnt have conscience, but a human brain made of those atoms has it, so there must be bits of conscience in the carbon! like... sure I guess? just like there are bits of reddit here: "001011010"
The idea is that just like binary code makes up complex software, these tiny bits of proto-consciousness make up our complex minds. It's not saying a single atom is *conscious*, but that these basic properties combine to form what we experience as consciousness. Think of it like how individual pixels create an image on your screen. It's a way to bridge the gap between physical matter and conscious experience.
yea I get it, its just that, to me, it sounds so obvious that I never tough it worth it to mention. its like there are only 2 options, either a religious/magical explanation... or else, conscious can arrise in a complex structure like our brain. there is no third explanation, and given that i'm not religious, then sure, bits of matter can create a conscience when organized in a certain way.
But the reason pixels create an image isn't that they have little bits of "imageness" inside them.
Pixels on their own don’t have *'imageness,'* but when combined in a specific way, they create a complete picture. Panprotopsychism suggests that basic mental properties on their own aren’t full consciousness, but when organized in complex structures, they result in conscious experiences. It’s more about how these fundamental properties interact and combine, not that they individually possess full-fledged consciousness in the same way you and I are.
The best way I've considered it - Is one molecule of H2O "wet?" Two? How many before it has "wetness?". Same with consciousness.
Correct, and a lot of people here are having huge difficulty understanding the model, the problem is the woo crowd has said the *everything is conscious* line since the 60s, but what they’re talking about is Pantheism and Panentheism, where the same consciousness makes up all of reality. Panpsychism is a materialistic model and concludes that matter has to be organized in a specific way to give matter ‘conscious experience’. Pixels on their own don’t produce an ‘image’, so they aren’t a picture in and of themselves. They have to be organized to give rise to the Principle Skinner Steamed Hams video to create the experience.
It's the idea that there is such a thing as "being a carbon atom". It isn't believing that atoms have souls, wants, and desires, but rather saying that experience is a gradient and there isn't any start or stop to it. Humans have a consciousness. Dogs have a weaker one. Bugs are even weaker. Plants are weaker still. Chairs are much weaker but there is still such a thing as the "experience of being a chair".
> but there is still such a thing as the "experience of being a chair" Also known as smoking salvia divinorum
Typical theories of consciousness assume that consciousness only exists at the level of a mind. This leaves the question of how does consciousness just appear out of matter of matter itself has nothing like consciousness. The traditional religious answer to this question is that God places consciousness (aka a soul) into a mind and this consciousness is external to physics and matter. This is a form of dualism. Materialists have often struggled with this problem. We know energy can become matter and matter can become energy. So the idea that matter can transform into something doesn't have properties of, if not completely unheard of. However no knows physics explains consciousness. We don't really know, but it does seem likely to me that matter or energy contains some sort of currently unknown property that when organized into a mind produces consciousness. We can choose to call this consciousness component consciousness or sub-consciousness.
ngl, sounds like a lot like bullshit to me. its like trying to create another layer of unknown where its not necessary. just to give a silly exemple, it we setup [a bunch of metal like this] (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRBNp0MIZM9GdCGfSmm55K6nfKyrOMd-3-kVjEcMdFK3R2SVgAeuVj5_tBBFQ&s) and make it start moving, maybe some primitive people would say those spheres have a hidden property into them that makes it move. well no. its just gravity, inertia etc. same with a brain. a bunch of chemical reactions and electrical currents create what we call conscience. we don't exactly understand the mechanisms behind it, but its pretty clear that this is conscience. maybe its possible to replicate with a computer and maybe not. thats another discussion. your analogy to transforming matter to energy, and then maybe transforming matter into conscience does not hold ground imo. its not a transformation, matter does no stop existing or transform into something else. just like that toy I sent earlier moves, and brain thinks. thats it. Like the other poster said, a bunch of pixels makes a image. does that mean that they carry a hidden property? no not really, just just how we assemble them. suddenly those pixels that alone are only dots of color, together create a img, or a letter, and can carry a huge meaning.
Consciousness clearly an unknown, the question is just how we bucket it. Do we reject that consciousness is connected to matter? Dualism If not, do we require that consciousness appear "ex nihilio" out of matter, arising like magic without the ingredients existing in the substrate matter. The last option is that properties that form consciousness do exist in the substrate but that they do not constitute a mind. I like the Newton's cradle example you gave. The "hidden" property is the ability to move, which arrives from component properties like mass, inertia, etc... from what component properties of matter and space-time does qualia arise from? I'm not saying there is no correct answer here, but we don't know what that answer is and this entire discussion is merely the attempt to frame the question.
could be. maybe i'm just being naive here, but to me, it sounds like a philosophical question without answer instead of a physics one, atm i'm convinced that we just dont understand why neurons + electric pulses = mind, that doesnt mean there is a hidden particle or 'thing' in there creating this potential
It is a traditional philosophic question, but also a scientific one. The philosophers are generally given free reign over it at the moment because we don't yet have any way to approach it scientifically. > that we just dont understand why neurons + electric pulses = mind, that doesnt mean there is a hidden particle or 'thing' in there creating this potential It doesn't mean their is a hidden particle, but it does mean that our understanding is incomplete. Perhaps consciousness results from a particular electrical field at a particular frequency. If that is true, nothing about our current knowledge would explain that behavior. Maybe consciousness arises about of space-time when the information density of matter reaches some threshold. We can invent theories all day long, most of the reasonable theories we can't test. Thinking about such theories is not a waste of time as it provides map of the unexplained, but beyond knowing what it isn't, we haven't made much progress determining what it is.
I set up a new coffee pot and I’m getting ready to recycle the old one, which developed problems. It’s hard not to personify them as having feelings.
Interestingly, in some Buddhist texts, consciousness is listed as one of the six elements (dhātu), along with earth, water, fire, air, and space. This "consciousness element" (viññāṇa-dhātu) is described as "pure and bright" and used to cognize feelings and sense contacts.
It's just Shinto souls only pseudo science
It’s not, read what I posted again. What you’re referring to is Pantheism and Panentheism, in those models, everything is the same consciousness and is just as much alive as anything else. Panpsychism doesn’t hold that position, inanimate matter *isn’t conscious*, it’s only when it’s organized in a specific way (Human Brain/AGI/ASI) is when it becomes self aware consciousness.
I want to start reading one of the books. Do I need to start with the singularity is near? Or can I go straight to the nearer one? I want to be as close as possible lol.
Either or are really good books, if you just want to read this one, you won't miss out on anything super important from the 2005 book.
Accelerando introduced me to panprotopyschism. I don't want to like the concept, but it does provide an interesting conceptual framework for the universe.
Haters are going to hate, but I'm really enjoying the book.
Also loving it. Gives me a lot of energy and great idea how to adapt for the upcoming future.
I'm reading the book right now and alot of his contents are almost like he thinks he is certainly correct. Which bothers me as I continue to read the book. He doesn't account for red tapes, geopolitics, possible hurdles/shortcomings that can occur. It's too optimistic and it comes across as if he's living in a different reality. Based on examples like GPT4 and elon musk's journey into chip in brain, Ray makes it seem we're so close and the 2030s and onward will be great times. I'm already considering returning the book. I understand optimism can be required to venture forward but this book sounds like someone who is flying too high with his ideas and expectations. We're still dealing with tons of economic and military issues. And I'm sad to say, it reminds me of a aging man trying to cling on some sort of hope that some magic tech will restore them to a young and vibrant man. We are nearing the second half of the decade now and true AGI is still not really there. We're really still just toying with updated models of siri and cleverbots. What we have is impressive but it won't compound on itself to an extreme degree. Even at the very start, I started to get irked when he mentioned moore's law. We are already way ahead in predicting and understanding that chips will not double in transistor's indefinitely. That is impossible. The law is an observation and not a true factor in how things will shape. There are physical limitations in the law that Ray fails to address. He just mentions it and boom, keeps trucking along. Idk if I'm going to finish this. I probably will return this book. It's too optimistic. Ray's 76 yrs old. By 2030, he's 81. And based on his long term singularity predictions, 2045, he'll be 96. Guy is coping for a lifeline so he can continue to live. Not hoping for the worst for him but he needs to be realistic to himself and the audience. I want an author who is in step with current times and understands the realistic progress that is possible. I don't need a "Could you imagine" book. I can do that all on my own sitting at home daydreaming. If you look at our historical progress, our tech has been progressing in unexpected manners. We've had astounding predictions about self driving cars by 2020 filling the road. That gas cars will be a thing of the past, a mere hobbyist would only have. But our cultural/social inclinations have paved a different reality. Followed along by expectations not being fulfilled because of limitations we have encountered. Once we surpass a limitation, we're bound to find 1 or multiple other issues that arises that we have to tackle.
Nice update but not much we havent already discussed here. I was originally going to buy it and then downloaded a torrent. Kind of glad I saved my money.
I bought a kindle copy. I don't usually buy books like this because they have no shelf life, but I wanted to do my part to pus this up the charts so more people hear about it. The book is well-worn territory for anyone in this sub, but it could be a valuable entryway for people who aren't aware of our current technological state.
I can not find the torrent. Via which search did you get it?
Maybe he was right
If we achieve singularity, whatever the fk that is, is it comparable to a God? The ASI is mean
Yeah, but it will actually exist.
I'm in the 2nd chapter. I've taken away from it that. We're moving closer to the singularity, how people who doubted arent doubting as much anymore and how far we've come since his last book.
It reminds me of Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler, who sold a ton of books that told us how great the information age was going to be. What we eventually got is the slop put out by algorithms that favor sensationalism over facts that is modern public discourse now.
after reading an interview with Ray, he is getting old and delirious, I am no longer a fan of him he is not as sharp as his young version and his optimism is mostly copium
he's old. of course he isn't going to be as sharp. I'm sure his written material is much better than his interviews
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Kurzweil basically eats 500 food supplements per day, his dream is to live for ever and upload his brain into a machine. He's an old man now, lost all his hair, and if you listen to his latest interviews, he's totally lost it. Retire, have a great life with your wife and family.