The circled dot was used by the Pythagoreans and later Greeks to represent the first metaphysical being, the Monad or The Absolute.
My last post elicited many thoughtful comments about monism and an artificial intelligence generated poem to describe it.
Chris Crawford–who holds a graduate degree in physics–found the idea of quantum neutral monism irritating, or as he put it,
This notion arouses my Inner Curmudgeon to, well, a kind of erection. I was trained as a physicist, and my notions of physical reality are narrowly defined. Ergo, I find the mysticism inherent in monism to be (to use a pejorative term) “contemptibly loosey-goosey”. Moreover, my sense of strict objectivity finds the notion that the human mind is some fundamental component of reality to be shamefully vainglorious on our part. I see Homo Sapiens, including its minds, to be nothing more than another species populating this earth. I’m quite certain that, a thousand years from now (truth be told, less than a hundred), civilization will have destroyed itself and Homo Sapiens will have reverted to its original evolutionary niche as a low-density population of hunter-gatherers. After all, that’s what we evolved to be. And a million years from now, Homo Sapiens will have gone the way of Ozymandias. So much for the mind as a fundamental component of reality.
In addition, he was not that impressed by the AI generated poem. As he wrote,
While I’m feeling so super-curmudgeonly, I’d like to sneer briefly at the recent burst of AI. It’s certainly impressive and it will surely have many uses greatly boosting our economic output. But we must not forget that these LLM forms of AI comprise nothing more than an extremely well-read parrot. This AI understands absolutely NOTHING. It is highly talented at cobbling together bits and pieces of text that it finds to be related to the topic at hand.
Paul Van Pelt agreed with many of Crawford’s points. Regarding human specialness he stated, “Mr. Crawford’s notions on vainglory may be extended to an accounting of anthropocentrism … We adore musing over how much we think we know, being cognitively superior and all.” And regarding AI he wrote, “can anyone show me how AI exhibits intention? I submit, it does not. It exhibits imitation, because that is all it knows.”
I would say that Crawford make the case for materialism, a philosophy held by many great philosophers throughout history. I am perfectly comfortable with matter being the only reality and mind just reducible to matter. (Like almost all contemporary philosophers I’m a naturalist.) And if that’s depressing–-it doesn’t have to be–-then we can be comforted by the fact that we may be wrong.
As for artificial intelligence, I am more optimistic than either Crawford or Van Pelt. I have written extensively about the subject and was influenced by the many great computer scientists in the CS department at The University of Texas at Austin where I taught for many years. Almost all of the believe that something like what we call consciousness will eventually be created in the lab. Ray Kurzweil made one of the first popular cases for sentient computers in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence which I have summarized extensively.
In general my view follows because I am a functionalist who argues that mental states (like pain) are equivalent to whatever physical system (cells, wires, chips, etc.) serves the function of creating experiences. For us, pain is neurons firing to link input with output, for aliens or robots, this might have to do with different biological or mechanical wiring. For more I’d refer readers to my other writings on the subject. I would add the caveat that philosophy of mind is a difficult subject and I’m far from an expert in it. Moreover I’m may very well be wrong about strong AI.
Lyle T. responed thoughtfully to the AI-generated poem writing, “I was disturbed by the poem….not the content, but rather it’s beauty. Am I some extinct Cardinal disturbed by Galileo? Or do my not yet formulated intuitional fears have some logical justification? I am nervous about AI. I just can’t truly explain why.”
After I responded that it was, nontheless, a beautiful poem, Lyle elaborated,
Agreed. It is a truly beautiful poem. Which is what disturbed me.
I suspect it is an extension of an inquiry on free will that your essays and their associated comments began for myself. Prior to the discussions here I thought that, for me anyway, free will was a settled matter. Pulling on the thread of that self-knitted sweater with the tools provided by this site caused a quick unraveling. Leading to the possibility that for each of us, with a brain running on the laws of physics….chemical, electrical, sub-atomic particles etc…the brain (us) is a strictly deterministic machine. Incapable of any output beyond the result determined by algorithms of physical laws. An obvious extension of that concept leads to the idea that all input to that machine has come from a universe that is ALSO strictly deterministic. Which could mean all the way back to the origins of physical matter itself (“turtles all the way down”). Literally a VAST windup toy.
… This AI generated poem brought all these musings back. Deterministic production of an almost sublime beauty. Perhaps, if one could know the position/movement of every atomic particle at the Big Bang (or whatever the start was), it would have been possible to know this poem would be written, published by Prof. Messerly on this site, and commented on by myself and Mr. Van Pelt. Is this AI truly mindless? If so, then perhaps so am I.
Yes, there is something unnerving to many about how the AI instantly generated a better and more profound poem than any human could have. I suppose this could make us feel inferior (obviously computers are better at math, chess, go, and many other games and tasks that we are). Perhaps the future doesn’t need us after all. Then again maybe this is a good thing and we should be proud of creating children of our minds. I don’t know. But its a beautiful poem even if it is all metaphysical speculation as Mr. Crawford was suggesting.
Well, perhaps we speculate too much. Metaphysics fosters that and Hofstadter and Dennett encouraged Jootsing, jumping out of the system.. *Future* is some indeterminate “when” on the indeterminate Arrow of Time. That future, I suppose, needs nothing from us, whereas, WE need a future, if, and only if, we survive to see it. Some thinkers I have met say that is not to be—enough to drive us to hopeless nihilism. Or, like Mr. Crawford, intractable curmudgeons. Que sera, sera. We are not apt to impede the Arrow of Time. Not even should we invent and perfect that dreamed-of time machine.
Good luck with that, too. Best wishes for all.
You write, “I am perfectly comfortable with matter being the only reality and mind just reducible to matter.” But doesn’t this “comfortableness” entirely ignore the “hard problem of consciousness,” pretending the problem doesn’t even exist? Personally, my best guess is that consciousness is another dimension of reality, certainly tied to and emerging from inanimate and then animate matter, but not simply reducible to it. Precisely what elemental materials and AI evidently lack — intentionality (and, I would add, aspiration, emotions, awe….all of which AI can currently often mimic but not actually experience or feel)—are phenomena of this distinct dimension.
And I offer all that, focusing only on human consciousness, without going down the rabbit hole of different forms or levels of consciousness, whether animal, vegetable, or otherwise.
Perhaps “the future doesn’t need us” after all. probably not, perhaps nothing is needed, needing and being needed are concepts that only humans seem to entertain!
Perhaps our ‘problem’ is the concept of intelligence, we are surrounded by intelligence, intelligence flawlessly programmed to fill it’s niche in the grand scheme of things, intelligence that seemingly has no need or desire to be recognized as Intelligent.
Humans, in their preverbal state surely were like this, they were acutely aware of their surroundings, their eyes, ears and sense of smell were the tools they relied on to survive, they lived in a dangerous world, but they were also a dangerous creature, eventually it seems, they always eliminated all their enemies, there aren’t many Saber tooth Tigers left!
Modern man lives his life in the guise of the Man who lives in his conscious reverie, That man has a Name and a position, he is modern man’s Actor on the stage of life, we now no longer go forward equipped with our primal instincts to do battle with dangerous animals we go forward armed with guile and such props as we have, as we battle for Recognition, Prestige, and Wealth, these are the beasts a modern man wants to hang the heads of on his trophy wall!
We aren’t alone on stage our director is always therewith us silently signalling approval or disappointment as we play our roles, having a director that doesn’t ever like your performances creates a very unhappy actor, since we play both roles perhaps being very unhappy is the ‘unconscious’ goal of these lives?
People, like all the other intelligent creatures aren’t intelligent in themselves, they exhibit the intelligence that controls the Universe, will the intelligence that controls the Universe allow Man to build a machine that is more intelligent than men are capable of controlling?
We live in a time of falling IQs and failing general health, will society retain enough intelligence and vigour to sustain the machines that control us now?
Be good to the people and animals that love you! That is one positive thing we all can do!
You are correct that materialism has a hard time explaining the hard problem of consciousness. When I say comfortable I simply meant that materialism is a defensible philosophy. And I agree that consciousness is an emergent property of matter. However I’m no expert on any of these issues.