From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Mon Feb 23 2004 - 10:52:22 MST
> I guess the key point I was making is that all this discussion we
> are having
> is based on humans very limited conceptual frameworks.
Agreed
> Even to very
> advanced humans, the concepts we are discussing such as "growth",
> "ascension", "friendliness", "ethics" are not held as being
> existent in any
> way.
And yet most of these same people you're referring to [spiritual masters]
routinely carry out conversations using words like "meditation", "fork",
"toenail", "zen", and "compassion" -- words denoting concepts which they
ALSO don't hold as being existent in any way, presumably...
I don't hold human concepts to have any absolute meaning, but yet, I use
them in conversation anyway -- just as the "advanced humans" you're
referring to use words denoting such concepts when they want to communicate
[NOTE: I am certainly not claiming to be "advanced" in the same way that
these people are. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to be so
spiritually advanced to see these concepts as "unreal" and yet continue to
use them anyway.]
> If an AGI does achieve the levels of intelligence that we want to
> ascribe to it, then we should prepare ourselves for the strong possibility
> that it will come to the same realization that certain humans
> have about the
> non-dual nature of the universe. In which case everyone here may
> be rather
> disappointed :) But that outcome warrants a *very* long discussion not
> appropriate for this board.
Or, the AGI may come to the realization that both
a) the very spiritually advanced humans
b) ordinary human schmucks like us
are experiencing the universe in very limited ways ... and pioneer entirely
new ways of thinking, perceiving and understanding.
I suspect that an AGI *will* one day experience the "great truths" of
spirituality, and fully grok the state of mind of a spiritually enlightened
human
And I suspect that AGI's will also experience a hell of a lot of other
interesting kinds of truths and mind-states, which no human -- however
spiritually advanced -- has ever touched (or will ever)
-- Ben G
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:46 MDT