It is telling that the purveyors of AI
would designate its achievement as a new “Singularity.” Whether
intentional or not, they bring metaphysics and philosophy to the
table for discussion of this topic. It would have been inevitable in
any case, though, just as physics in general begins to broach upon
the same areas; a topology just as gray as the folded tissue of
neurons and synapses that ask these questions, and contemplates their
answers, in the first place.
This is so from my perspective because
I view the bigger picture as follows: The entirety is another order
of immense, question answer engine. A recursive process employing an
infinite array of vectors of association (or realities) to sort out
meaning, from the smallest scale to the largest, from one quantum
moment to the next. It is a recursive process because every answer is
just a parking lot for new questions, on and on, back and forth.
The basics in this process are the
“Elemental embrace,” and “Mind.” The first serves to require
interaction and exchange. The second serves to require the resolution
of boundaries so that objectification can occur, information and
meaning can happen, and thus ever more complex layers of abstraction
to develop along each vector of association.
One of the essential points in this way
of looking at things is that sentient meaning space and physical
meaning space are not only both real, in their own ways, but must
necessarily interact. This is so because physical meaning space
requires the singularity of an observing, meaning processor, so as to
provide something for that space to be relative to. And of course,
physical meaning space is subject as well to the vagaries of sentient
choice in both direct, and indirect affect from those choices. In
other words, what we believe to be true, and how we proceed on the
basis of those truths, affects our reality in both obvious, and not
so obvious ways.
If we then take the notion of a truly
sentient form of AI (a rather large, and by no means assured
assumption) and insert it into this frame of reference it shouldn't
take long at all to see where significant problems might occur. And I
mean problems quite beyond the usual fear of robot overlords turning
us into either slaves, or a biological inconvenience easily removed.
No, what I am talking about is the possibility of meaning processors
who's interaction with physical meaning space will result in far more
profound affects on the fundamental aspects of what is now reality.
After all, in the first instance of
sentience, it evolved from first order iteration meanings, and is, as
such, a good deal more connected to those first order meanings, even
though it might now be moving away from them with an overemphasis on
the measured logic of empiricism. If we create a new kind of
sentience, one that has absolutely no further connection to what is
felt subjectively, as opposed to merely observed objectively; a
meaning processor whose self imposed evolution will be many orders of
magnitude faster than anything before it, what then might become of
the interplay between it and physical meaning space?
Metaphysical nonsense? Perhaps. The
fact that it might be possible, however low a probability, though
ought to give everyone significant pause for concern. And even if
fully sentient AI isn't in the cards any time even only moderately
soon, what of self sufficient reasoning engines? How much meaning
processing, short of actual self awareness, does it take before such
systems start to have an effect on physical meaning space? Perhaps
even more important, what will our incorporation of such systems in
our bodies and minds, let alone our social organization, do to our
own meaning space? How do we program the full range of what it is to
experience physical meaning space as subjective feeling, as well
objective observation?
Having said all of the above, however,
I do still want to be clear on one thing: I am in no way opposed to
objective empiricism in and of itself. It is, without much doubt at
all, important not only to our physical well being, but in our
ability to further praise and appreciate what unfolds around us. We
must simply remember that it is not the only important thing to bring
to the table of experience. This is so because objectivity can only
get us so far in what is out there to be experienced. This is so
because there are channels of interaction that defy ordinary means of
observation; channels that will require a subjective application of
how we feel about a multiplicity of what might be possible meanings
precisely because the instrumentality of measurement lacks the
precision to resolve boundaries any further than a cloud of
probabilities, even if it can be applied at all.
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