http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:illusivemind&section=today deviantART RSS for by:illusivemind en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:47:39 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/10550525/ http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/10550525/ Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:07:58 PST
It is questionable as to whether it is meaningful at all. Upside down in relation to what? Well, we have designated a northern and a southern hemisphere on our fair planet, with the representation being that the north is on top and the south is down below.

But of course, it could just as easily have been the other way around. There is no objective reason for preferring one to the other. We might discover alien civilizations that position their planets 'upside down' in relation to our own.

To declare the universe is upside down is to suggest that our directional preference has some 'truth' or objectiveness that the rest of the universe has failed to observe. This is absurd because no such objectiveness exists. We have forgotten that we invented this idea of direction.

This is a metaphor for the absurdity of applying objectivity to human 'reason'. Just like north & south we have designated certain ideas and limits to better understand and navigate the realms of human knowledge. For something to be outside the limits of human logic (and there are competing logics that each rule out different absurdities) means simply that it falls outside the rules we have invented. The rules so implicit in the functioning of out brains and our language that it is easy to forget we have invented them.

Were our brains and our language different it is easy to conceive that so too our logic might be different. Thus, 'truth', like 'north', is a word, we invented to describe an idea particular to our place and time. To think that it extends to and beyond the reaches of existence… well the universe might as well be upside down.

I wanted a metaphor [link] and now I have one.

]]> ~illusivemind http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/10550510/ http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/10550510/ Sun, 29 Oct 2006 16:06:28 PST [link] titled: How would a machine think? Probably not like us... [link]

It seems like so long ago that I was entertaining these exact thoughts, latching onto the Sapir-Worf hypothesis [link] to confirm my intuitions about the cognitive nature of language [link] before I found out their particular research was bunk [link]

I remember writing about how representations of AI have been woefully lacking in truly imagining the limitations [link] and expanded possibilities of a machine mind. My story Press Any Key was based on this very thought, but it is clear to me know how much this is in need of an update.

So I dug this out of the trashcan, on Wed Aug 04, 2004 some thoughts of mine on how that digital thinker might think!


...Think about it, we're operating on the instructions of human 95, a scared, individualistic, reproductive survival machine. That is what we were built for (if you believe in evolution) however long ago, and we get patches and updates (biologically) as often as Windows.

Greed, jealousy, selfishness, are all products of a survival mechanism built in to keep the whole human race going. But our cognitive applications have evolved faster than our hardware can keep up. We have much more of an emphasis on how we use our brains, and as such we get fat, contract heart-disease and die. Our hardware is still operating on the idea that we run 50 miles a day to get dinner.

So now turn to AI (I'd say DI but it isn't as catchy). It has no such biological limitations. It's hardware is only limited by our ability to invent it. I have yet to see a movie that accurately depicts an artificially intelligent being, (maybe T2). Why? Because like the self-loving gods that we are we shape them in our own image. I tend to think that emotions are a biological product of a certain arrangement of chemicals. Before we attached meaning and significance to them they were designed to get the job done, (it's much easier to kill when you're angry). But don't ask me what depression is for. "Crying is a puzzler"

So there is no reason to assume that they are necessary to intelligence and as such why an AI would have them. Considering that AI does not have the same biological heritage as ourselves there is also no reason to assume that it would posses the same left-overs. The inherent selfishness, and greed that is apart of being human (which isn't to say, love and compassion aren't also parts) would not be necessarily present in AI.

AI characters which emulate these characteristics (i.e. 'angry' robots in I Robot) are due to a poverty of the imagination. We are so used to humanity, that we find it difficult to imagine an emotionless intelligence. To our way of thinking, someone without any emotion is a very ill-minded person.

The consequences of realistically envisaging the AI construct are numerous and intriguing. Suppose we had a suitable default AI receptacle. A hard drive with sensory input devices and output devices. Also suppose that any particular AI could be loaded onto any particular machine, the greatest of all human traits might then be non-existent. And that is an unwavering attachment to our own particular vessels. Imagine a being that had no such hang-up, that they knew if one was broken that could always to uploaded to another. What kind of ramifications would that have for the thought processes of AI?

Would it lead to an infinite amount of Smith-like duplicates? No, I don't think so. The primal urge for reproduction is also lost. All the emotional crap that clouds our vision of reality would disappear. I'd like to think these beings would have a very Zen-like appreciation of our world. But of course, what value is there in a creature that can never be happy?

]]> ~illusivemind http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/9995779/ http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/9995779/ Thu, 07 Sep 2006 06:15:01 PDT
[link]


The bulk of this song was made in one four hour session, with the rest finished the next day. The way creativity seems to function for me is in sudden hits like this, even though it may utilize ideas Ive been working on for months.

Perhaps it functions best only when my hypercritical faculties are mollified, for after the act of creation, the work never seems to be as good as it was and I have to resist the urge to tamper to the point of destruction in a Frankensteinian manner.

The degree of my mistake phobia is such that even if something of my doing is given high praise and accolades it is always far from perfect and considered a draft or work in progress.

So by all means leave comments, you won't come close to the inner critic! :-D ]]> ~illusivemind http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/8956762/ http://illusivemind.deviantart.com/journal/8956762/ Sat, 03 Jun 2006 06:29:10 PDT ~illusivemind