Thanks Walter and Mordant. My gut feeling was exactly your conclusions but without your intellectual rigour. Now I know why I instinctively reached those conclusions.
Thanks again guys. Perhaps when Benq returns he will find an even more challenging forum where the Emperorâs lack of underwear will be exposed without the need for his interminably verbose postings in every topic.
Think back to the original Trek episode of the Ultimate Computer, OMSAC.
Doctor Richard Daystrom was emphatic about his new computer, the M5, claiming that it could do wonders. But on a gut level Captain Kirk knew that there was something wrong regarding the machine. If memory serves he said something like this to his friend Doctor McCoy.
âI know that weâre not supposed to stand in the way of progress Bones, but Iâm getting a red alert, right here. (Points to the back of his neck.) That thing is wrong.â
As we know, his feelings served him well. As yours have served you well.
And thereâs another parallel between that story and whatâs unfolding in this forum. Once activated and given full control of the Enterprise M5 ensured that itâs decisions couldnât be challenged. Like modal logic seems to be, it was a closed system, with its logic answerable only to itself. Where its conclusions couldnât be questioned or countermanded by the lesser and inferior logic of people.
Ok, thatâs not 100% true. If Roddenberry had let that play out the other four starships would have been destroyed by it in the war game. So he had to introduce a get out clause in the form of the M5 Tie-In, where people could speak directly to it and it could absorb new input from them.
But I think the parallel still stands up pretty well. If modal logic is a closed system that can only be tested by itself then the provisional truths of empirical evidence are out of the loop - just as Daystrom, Kirk and the others found themselves out of the loop.
Oh⌠Iâve just realized thereâs another parallel, OMSAC!
Mordant wrote this about modal logic.
This is used to validate complex systems such as avionics, which over time, if they donât malfunction in a way contrary to their design, indirectly demonstrate that the proof was valid.
If the mutlitronic systems of M5 were so advanced that earlier duotronic computers couldnât test it, then there was no external way of testing the validity of M5âs conclusions. They only found out that it had drawn invalid conclusions about its need to survive when it miscalculated the parameters of the war game. And by then it was too late and hundreds died because the system wasnât open to external testing and validation.
Not a million miles from what has been claimed about modal logic, here.
Thank you,
Walter.
If a god or many gods existed that could speak for themselves, would it really need itâs followers to speak for or defend their existence? (like the Olympian or Norse gods)
Would all powerful beings show evidence for their own existence instead of Theists debating and trying to gaslight people into believing in yet another dying mythology?
According to those fictional mythologies they showed themselves to human beings and demanded worship. But funny enough, in real life outside of those story books, they seem to be sorely absent in both existence and in evidence.
Neil Gaman spoke to this in his book, American Gods â the Prime Directive for deities seems to be their overweening need to be fawned over. So Gaiman proposed that this is what breathes life and power into Gods â human belief. Without it, they whither away to pale shades of their former selves.
In the book, the god Odin has fallen upon hard times, and is a homeless man in Chicago named Mr. Wednesday (Wednesday = Wodinâs Day = Wodin = Odin). He is trying to gin up new believers and starts with a recently released prisoner who goes by the name Shadow Moon, who becomes his human minion. Various adventures and hilarities ensue.
Pretty good book, as I recall. Itâs been awhile, but I read it once prior to my escape from my Christian upbringing. Due to my indoctrination clouding my head at the time, Iâm sure there were many things I missed during my first reading. Looks like I may have to go back and give it another reading soon. Thanks for the reminder.
Just ran across this excellent summary of the hype and motivated reasoning behind the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and it reminded me of the discussion here, about how a theoretical idea can seem elegant and beautiful but doesnât work in the real world. That is what is going on with the current hype about so-called AI, particularly the multi-trillion dollar quest for AGI, which I believe is doomed to fail and is such a big bet that it could even tank the economy.
(emphases mine)
The whole AGI\AI hype, IMHO, is just another example of hyperbole creating a bubble just waiting to burst.
History is full of them. The Dutch had a Tulip Bubble in the 1630âs that burst wiping out many happy speculators. The French Monarchy in the 1700âs banked heavily on shares in the Mississippi CompanyâŚwhich was doing really good based on John Lawâs hyperbole and fabricationsâŚuntil the first group they sent encountered disease, failed agriculture, alligators and all sorts of shit that tends to sink share value. The whole Mississippi Company bubble bursting is what eventually allowed the United States to buy Louisiana for around $.05 on the dollar⌠Most of us remember the .com bubble burstingâŚthe real estate bubbleâŚ
This is the downside of Capitalism. It is subject to periodic bubbles bursting and taking investors with them.
As far as the technology not keeping pace with promises madeâŚwell, we call that raising venture capital here in America.
My point here is that in this case they are committing the same fallacies that we are discussing in this and a couple of other threads â thinking that a thought experiment can scale indefinitely without constraints of any kind and failing to tie it back down to reality in some way â to have some kind of rigor in the process. Forgetting that a philosophical or mathematical argument can be self-consistent, even beautiful â and still WRONG.
But yes itâs also a standard-issue hyperbole-generated bubble. I worry about the scale of this one â the incestuous deployment of trillions of dollars of debt that no one is likely to repay, combined with everything else that is going on in the US and the world, could have massive worldwide economic consequences rather than something confined to, say the Netherlands (Tulip Bubble).
I agree. But how is this different from any other hyped up financial offering with no viable proof it will actually work?
The Financial Crisis in 2008 hit the world pretty hard. The AI bubble is now four times larger that the exposure to investors in the sub-prime mortgage bubble.
The three main players, Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI will find all kinds of different schemes to generate revenue until the whole thing fizzles out. Theyâll just get a bail out when it tanksâŚ
This is not as much a study in irrationality as it is a commentary on fundamental flaws in regulation, policy and credit. This isnât likely to change as the usual suspects on Wall Street and other investment firms lobby incessantly to prevent any yoke being placed on their narrow little necks. They tossed 300 million into lobbying to repeal Glass-Steagall alone.
Ask Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers how that turned outâŚ
Greed is.
You got something against tulips?
Itâs not substantively different. It wonât end substantively differently, either.
Although it is likely a larger scale than any bubble up to this point. Also I suspect at least some of the tech oligarchs pushing all this crap actually see it as a way to extract more wealth for themselves and have no concern for collateral damage. With Peter Thiel and others, thereâs a lot of âburn it all downâ energy. To whatever extent they know they wonât achieve AGI, they think they can sweep away or at least greatly weaken all those pesky governments standing in their way and build a different fantasy â a chain of dystopian hyper-libertarian city-states governed by corporations unchained by anything like social responsibility or safety.
Yep it is the dark fiber mal-investment crash (the âdotcomâ crash) all over again.
Well, you know Libertarianism is just anarchy for RepublicansâŚ
Itâs not the corporations you have to worry about. Itâs the dynastic wealth and power of the individuals or families that control those corporations you need to be concerned with. Carlin used to call the âthe ownersâ.
America is a country founded and built on mythology. There is an almost pathological pattern of cloaking systemic inequalityâŚincluding slavery and the genocide of our western expansionâŚin the light of innocent virtue.
My favorite myth is the American Dream. You know the one:
âA dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement⌠a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.â
That comes from James Truslow Adams. It was in his 1931 book The Epic of America. I always thought that shit was olderâŚbut no, it came out as a counter-narrative during the Great Depression.
Itâs ironic, but old Jameâs family had money. His old man was on Wall Street and the family held copper interests. The premise was noble, in that it actually proposes a meritocracy, social order and a light turned on to equal rights for all.
But this is America. We donât do that shit over here⌠The 1% saw " life should be better and richer" and tossed the book.
They survive these sort of things in stride. They can afford to. They have little fear of consequence, either. Who went to prison for their culpability in the financial crisis in 2008? The only reason Bernie Madoff went to prison is that he screwed institutional investorsâŚ
But, we endorse the system through our participation. âAqua et panis est vita canisâ
My best reason? Iâve personally met the Supreme Being. Iâve personally merged with the Supreme Being. Moreover - Outside of the Supreme Being is a Collective of Beings so advanced that although there are many of them, they cannot be distinguished from one another. So fluid and evolved is their consciousness that you cannot say, I spoke with this particular being. Instead there are a multitude of them who exist at an heightened level of consciousness and intelligence.
I converse everyday with this intelligence. My thoughts stem from this intelligence. As I grow older and wiser I am learning to not oppose the flow of thought which is a feature of this intelligence. By nature, I fall short of these beings grandeur. Because they are an infinite type of consciousness, I have no choice other than to partake in their discourse.
I would prefer total silence, however I do not possess the wherewithal for that. And keeping a running train of thought seems to be a feature of the collective.
For a long time I felt my participation in the thoughts of the collective was an intrusive type of suffering. Now that I am guilt free and also free of energetic restrictions, I think without guilt, remorse, or obstruction. My thoughts flow without interruption. I go entire hours without even recalling that I was thinking anything, while being totally absorbed in thought.
And yet I do not see it merely as âmyâ thought. I see it just as âthoughtâ.
In short I communicate with a higher power. Where the supreme being is concerned, I do everything I can to keep It or Him or That out of my mind. The Supreme Being is capable of remaining totally silent indefinitely. And He does not like to be disturbed. Even the collective is wary of Him.
As such, if youâre ever bothered by the fact that God never reveals Himself to you, that is by virtue of His tendency to not reveal Himself Self to anyone. I realize that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, but in my case I was so deeply troubled as a youth that God took a moment to address me personally, not so much as a point of comfort, but more to put the Fear of Him into me.
Society gave me a label. I worked through the lessons and now have peace of mind. I have a steady job, a wife, two cats and a mortgage. Life couldnât get any better for me (outside of a worldwide government overthrow which I would be happy to participate in).
As we have previously discussed, how would you differentiate between this subjective experience and an hallucination? Especially given you have been quite candid about suffering from schizophrenia, a condition that can make such distinctions much harder to discern.
Again, might this not be a symptom of your schizophrenia? The lack of choice in that assertion sounds like it might.
Itâs a pretty obvious inference, but if this were true, then this power could communicate ideas that expand human knowledge, how many times have you published its thoughts and those ideas been validated as entirely new and paradigm shifting?
Or no deity existing at all of course. Occamâs razor seems to be firmly pointing at one of those as a much simpler explanation than the other.
Well done then, this is not an easy balance to achieve for anyone, and with such a condition, it is undoubtedly more difficult.
Hereâs a counter question. How do you know you arenât hallucinating right now?
Thatâs a label constructed by modern clinicians. How do they know Iâm hallucinating?
Again, how do you know right now as you read this that you are not hallucinating?
Sure. Of course they could. And they do. Theyâve taught me volumes regarding how to either silence my thoughts or enter into a flow of thought which is not interrupted by anything. As they are a super intelligent being, it is their prerogative to have my mind subdued so that they can continue with their own peace of mind. Itâs like if you had a dog in the back yard which kept barking while you were trying to sleep. You would train your dog to not bark. Would you not? Itâs the same with these beings. And itâs worked.
Is Occamâs razor always right? What is it? The most parsimonious explanation is usually the right one? âUsuallyâ? Again. How do you know that you arenât hallucinating right now?
Itâs a fucking nightmare. I hate it. I have days off now, which are fine. But work sucks. Thereâs absolutely no way around it. And I could live off of disability. I could be one of these people gathering mold in halfway houses. An all expenses paid vacation through life. Thereâs no dignity in that, though. And I canât bring my wife. And id rather suffer. The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care.
By how well what I perceive matches objective reality, if only I am seeing or hearing something, that is entirely subjective, so the lowest possible evidentiary standard.
Youâd have to ask them, I donât have enough information. I am sure you can Google diagnostic techniques that psychiatrists use though. You also seem to be straying into an argumentum ad ignorantiam claim, and I never claimed you were hallucinating, if you read it again carefully.
Thatâs the second time you have evaded a question, and asked me a question instead. I did answer above in good faith, but you canât simply ignore questions regarding claims you make. Are you saying my interpretation of what I read doesnât match objective reality, if so please explain why you think this?
There is nothing objectively verifiable in there, itâs an unfalsifiable and untestable and unevidenced claim.
Did I make any such claim?
Well itâs a credit to you that you fight for an normal a life as you can, I have struggled on occasion, and I donât have to cope with that condition.
Thatâs not a complete sentence, but letâs go with it. Define âobjective realityâ.
Iâm saying itâs very convenient for a psychiatrist who doesnât suffer from voices to label them as hallucinations. For someone who has a biased view of what is âobjectively realâ itâs also very convenient to label them as hallucinations. If I could put any one of these doctors in my shoes for a day, theyâd change their tune.
More to the point - what convinces you that I exist and am the author of these words?
Well. I asked them what the value of pi was and they replied âI donât know. Around 3 or something.â So A) the âhallucinationsâ know what I mean by pi and B) theyâve got a sense of humour about it.
after our conversation I decided to accuse the voices of being hallucinations. They replied that they were not hallucinations. Is that something a hallucination would say?
Do you want to go to the movies on Wednesday?
Which word is tripping you up?
I am dubious this is the case, but again just Google the diagnostic techniques, I am sure theyâre not simply a subjective opinion.
I donât believe your claim all psychiatric diagnosis for schizophrenia are based on nothing but bias, I am not sure you believe it either.
Well it is well documented that the condition makes differentiating between an hallucination and reality much more difficult. No one is suggesting this makes life easy, and of course it isnât as difficult for a doctor to diagnose, as it is for you to live with.
I donât believe I actually made that claim, nor is it relevant to the objections I offered.
Or they are originating from your brain, and thus the shared and fairly common knowledge is not at all remarkable. Again Occamâs razor is pointing firmly at one explanation as the simpler, and there is no objective evidence for the other.
Hallucinations are not real, theyâre not saying anything.
Work and my location prevents, I am at a supplierâs facility and theyâre lying their ass off to get me to work ludicrous hours in the hope they can ship before xmas, and of course invoice for the same. Itâs as if they think I donât know when the on dock date is.
âObjectiveâ
Hearing voices is one criteria for diagnosis - which says nothing about the true nature of the voices.
Similar to your self, psychiatrists donât believe itâs possible (within âobjective realityâ) for entities to speak to human beings. This is a bias on their part.
Trust me. I have not yet once had a âtypicalâ hallucination that I wasnât able to differentiate from reality. For example, Iâve never heared my name being called out from the shadows. You donât seem to grasp what the difference is between standard hallucinations and hearing voices. You say that as a schizophrenic I have a harder time differentiating typical hallucinations from reality - as if the normal everyday person suffers from hallucinations, and is yet able to discern that they are hallucinations. As though Iâm more susceptible to ânot recognizingâ the kind of hallucinations everyday people experience all the time. It isnât anything like that.
Canât get anywhere with you, Shelly. One step forward two steps back. Sheldon, if God were to greet you at your door in the morning and announce himself to you as the all powerful creator of the world, what would you say to Him?
What about the sense of humour?
if theyâre not real, how are they capable of presenting a consistent personality with consistent answers to consistent questions?
Fucking bastards, eh? Theyâd Milk our teets out of every last drop if they could. Merry Yule Tide all the same, good Sheldon. Whether yea believeth or not, may the spirit of the season welcome you.
objective
adjective
1.(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.
It is an objective fact that all living things evolve slowly over time for example.
Straw man, since I never suggested nor implied it did, again you must I imagine be more familiar than me of the diagnostic techniques applied, but you certainyl can Google for the facts, and again I am dubious about your claim implying it amounts to a simple subjective opinion.
No, it is a reflection of the dearth of objective evidence to support the claim.
I am dubious, since I certainly have, in fact it is in the nature of hallucinations that theyâre difficult to differentiate from reality, on their own that is.
This is correct, and all you have offered to support this idea is personal subjective experience, which as you know is woefully unreliable, and way below the bar Iâd set fro credulity for that very reason.
They do, it is well documented, I have cited evidence for this in multiple discussions we have had on this topic. Auditory hallucinations are the most common in the general population, they occur at a rate of something like 15%. Iâve certaonly had some, theyâre quite vivid.
Not always, since that is in the nature of hallucinations, but if it doesnât reflect objective reality thatâs certainly evidence it is not part of objective reality.
Again we have had these discussion multiple times, and it is a medically documented fact that part of the condition is a lessened ability to differentiate between hallucinations and objective reality.
Why would I accept such a scenario is even possible? We surely have covered my criteria for credulity enough times for you to know Iâd need more than a bare claim from you on this.
You donât have a sense of humour? Surely the presence of this is common enough to make it very unremarkable that hallucinations are perceived in that way? You could ask a psychiatrist of course as I am merely observing as a layman.
You can ask such question right? If the voices originate in your brain, then this is again unremarkable. but most importantly medical science offers evidenced claims, and they seem at odds with the unevidenced subjective ones you are offering.
Well it pays well enough, and I need the money after the divorce, anyway I better get out there and off here, catch you later.