The beauty of A.I.

[_subgenius]

Here's an interesting documentary that made it to my front page on Reddit:

https://youtu.be/7H6doOmS-eM?t=290

I decided to watch it and, well, it's worth thinking about in terms of a simulated reality for us. I started you out where it picks up the idea we're discussing.

- Doc

Interesting video, and a fascinating subject. How do you consider that topic inasmuch as it makes human beings just way more complex "leaves"?

[_subgenius]

There is a third option, that consciousness is an emergent quality that arises from material brains that is itself not material.

I believe you still only have option 1 or 2 when considering the idea emergent qualities, because these qualities are either beholden to natural laws or they are not. Just because something is complex does not exclude it from inevitability. A waterfall could be seen as a complex assembly of water drops, but the obedience of water is unchanged. In other words, the same chemical reactions will always produce the same product; not most of the producing a product while some choose to produce another product.

The first option, that of there being a homunculus of sorts that uses the material body as a tool/vehicle is widely disparaged and absolutely at odds with modern neuroscience. The neural processes that form the act of seeing, hearing, reacting to stimuli are all demonstrably seated and exist wholy inside of the material brain in ways that make their functions much more than a collector of data to be processed elsewhere. Our brains construct reality from the stimuli we receive of which our own self-awareness seems to be part of that construction. The emergent qualities of the mind out of the material brain do not eliminate the problem of free will, and I'm of the opinion that truly libertarian free will is an illusion. But that isn't the entire story as we have executive powers through consciousness that can be observed to exert back into the machine mind. Some would argue we have free won't, others that with mindfulness we can write or at least influence the code such that we aren't merely passive subjects.

Sure the free-will argument is at the heart of these two options, but option 2 excludes the existence of free-will unless it exists as an illusion...as a sort of mental delusion the brain creates to convince itself. Otherwise, if there is something "emerging" that can transcend the laws of nature then it is not really emergent at all. I do not think "complex" is a substitute for supernatural or vice/versa.

Anyway, Emergence is either perfectly natural.....or it is not....what say you?

[_DoubtingThomas]

Have you considered that you're actually part of an A.I. consciousness and this is just a simulation in which this consciousness is manifesting itself?

- Doc

It is possible.