Re:How Bell’s Theorem proved ‘spooky action at a distance’ i...
by joe_the_user on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @06:29PM
(#27900146)
I actually think the singularity is an interesting concept deserving of exploration. But "singularians" like Nick Bostrom (author of parent link) have some strange ideas.
A. The idea that intelligence beyond human beings would grant it's possessor power that are in ways absolute in very specific, rigid fashion. Human being can accomplish a lot of things. It's notable those things human beings do better than computers seem very tenuous. Humans seem to drive rather haphazardly yet humans drive much better than computers and driving overall seems a "bucket chemistry" sort of activity. Humans calculate much worse than computers and calculation is an exact, defined activity (arguable, the exact, defined activity). But for the singularians, transhuman devices will do the uncertain, tenuous activities that humans do but with "no mistakes". And for a lot human activities, "no mistakes" actually might not even mean anything. Despite humans driving better than computers, humans probably wouldn't even agree on what absolute good driving even means.
B. Simulation as exact map. Any human created simulation of some system is going to be an approximation of that system for the purpose of extracting particular phenomena. Some things are discarded, other focused on and simplified. A model of the solar has to consider conservation of energy or tiny deviations will produce instability over time since errors overall on unavoidable in current hardware. Even a simulation of a computer chip isn't useful unless one knows the chip's purpose is logical operations. But for Bostrom and partisans of
C. Incoherent ontology. If we could produce an exact model of a thing, which is the real subject and which is simulation? What if we could produce twenty "exact simulations", which is real? In a realm of unlimited hypotheticals and unlimited exact simulations, wouldn't a least a countable infinite simulations of "everything" exist. Which is real is quite a conundrum but this problem itself only exists in a world of multiplied objects which we actually have no reason to suppose exists.
A. The idea that intelligence beyond human beings would grant it's possessor power that are in ways absolute in very specific, rigid fashion. Human being can accomplish a lot of things. It's notable those things human beings do better than computers seem very tenuous. Humans seem to drive rather haphazardly yet humans drive much better than computers and driving overall seems a "bucket chemistry" sort of activity. Humans calculate much worse than computers and calculation is an exact, defined activity (arguable, the exact, defined activity). But for the singularians, transhuman devices will do the uncertain, tenuous activities that humans do but with "no mistakes". And for a lot human activities, "no mistakes" actually might not even mean anything. Despite humans driving better than computers, humans probably wouldn't even agree on what absolute good driving even means.
B. Simulation as exact map. Any human created simulation of some system is going to be an approximation of that system for the purpose of extracting particular phenomena. Some things are discarded, other focused on and simplified. A model of the solar has to consider conservation of energy or tiny deviations will produce instability over time since errors overall on unavoidable in current hardware. Even a simulation of a computer chip isn't useful unless one knows the chip's purpose is logical operations. But for Bostrom and partisans of
C. Incoherent ontology. If we could produce an exact model of a thing, which is the real subject and which is simulation? What if we could produce twenty "exact simulations", which is real? In a realm of unlimited hypotheticals and unlimited exact simulations, wouldn't a least a countable infinite simulations of "everything" exist. Which is real is quite a conundrum but this problem itself only exists in a world of multiplied objects which we actually have no reason to suppose exists.