0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
An interstellar or intergalactic civilization will have to deal with communication and transportation problems. Interactions among different stellar or galactic systems can't happen in real time. We will have limited bandwidth and big latency problems. The solutions must contain decentralisation or localization of resources, akin to edge computing I've mentioned in another thread. Local problems are better solved locally. Global problems are better solved globally. Universal problems are better solved universally.
Telos has been consistently used in the writings of Aristotle, in which the term, on several occasions, denotes 'goal'.[6] It is considered synonymous to teleute ('end'), particularly in Aristotle's discourse about the plot-structure in Poetics.[6] The philosopher went as far as to say that telos can encompass all forms of human activity.[7] One can say, for instance, that the telos of warfare is victory, or the telos of business is the creation of wealth. Within this conceptualization, there are telos that are subordinate to other telos, as all activities have their own, respective goals.For Aristotle, these subordinate telos can become the means to achieve more fundamental telos.[7] Through this concept, for instance, the philosopher underscored the importance of politics and that all other fields are subservient to it. He explained that the telos of the blacksmith is the production of a sword, while that of the swordsman's, which uses the weapon as a tool, is to kill or incapacitate an enemy.[8] On the other hand, the telos of these occupations are merely part of the purpose of a ruler, who must oversee the direction and well-being of a state.
David Chalmers’s (1995) hard problem famously states: “It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises.” Thomas Nagel (1974) wrote something similar: “If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue about how this could be done.” This presentation will point the way towards the long-sought “good explanation” -- or at least it will provide “a clue”. Prof Solms will make three points:(1) It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.(2) Affective feeling, by contrast, is conscious by definition. You cannot feel something without feeling it. Moreover, affective feeling, generated in the upper brainstem, is the foundational form of consciousness: prerequisite for all the higher cognitive forms.(3) The functional mechanism of feeling explains why and how it cannot go on ‘in the dark’, free of any inner feel. Affect enables the organism to monitor deviations from its expected self-states in uncertain situations and thereby frees homeostasis from the limitations of automatism. As Nagel says, “An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.” Affect literally constitutes the sentient subject.
Mark Solms discusses his new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the centre of mental life.Understanding why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain seems like an impossible task. Mark explores the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated. Their uncanny conversations help to expose the brain’s obscure reaches.Mark Solms has spent his entire career investigating the mysteries of consciousness. Best known for identifying the brain mechanisms of dreaming and for bringing psychoanalytic insights into modern neuroscience, he is director of neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town, honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, and an honorary fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.This talk was livestreamed by the Ri on 28 January 2021.
Quote(2) Affective feeling, by contrast, is conscious by definition.
(2) Affective feeling, by contrast, is conscious by definition.
Quote(1) It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.
(1) It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.
Watch Yuval Noah Harari speak with Fei-Fei Li, renowned computer scientist and Co-Director of Stanford University's Human-Centered AI Institute -- in a conversation moderated by Nicholas Thompson, WIRED's Editor-in-Chief. The discussion explores big themes and ideas, including ethics in technology, hacking humans, free will, and how to avoid potential dystopian scenarios.The event was hosted at Stanford in April 2019, and was jointly sponsored by the university's Humanities Center, McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).
11:45 Unlike philosophers who are extremely patient people, they can discuss something for thousands of years without reaching any agreement and they are fine with that, the engineers won't wait. And even if the engineers are willing to wait, the investors behind them won't wait.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 28/04/2021 13:02:14Quote(1) It is unfortunate that cognitive science took vision as its model example when looking for a ‘neural correlate of consciousness’ because cortical vision (like most cognitive processes) is not intrinsically conscious. There is not necessarily ‘something it is like’ to see.Among human senses, vision provides highest resolution inputs. It can reach objects from long distances as well as shorter ones. The way we imagine our environments are usually done in visual representation. It's hard to do that through other type of senses such as taste or auditory.
David Chalmers’s (1995) hard problem famously states: “It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises.” Thomas Nagel (1974) wrote something similar: “If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue about how this could be done.”
Understanding why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain seems like an impossible task. Mark explores the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated. Their uncanny conversations help to expose the brain’s obscure reaches.Mark Solms has spent his entire career investigating the mysteries of consciousness. Best known for identifying the brain mechanisms of dreaming and for bringing psychoanalytic insights into modern neuroscience, he is director of neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town, honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, and an honorary fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists.
Vision alone only covers input part of a conscious system. It still requires other parts like self awareness, preference or feedback mechanism, and output or actuating system to change its environment. However, it's possible to build a conscious system where its input from environment is exclusively visual.
But there are possible alternatives, such as optical computers, electromechanical, mechanical, hydraulic, and pneumatic computers.
Scientists have found that a brainless, single-celled organism is capable of solving mazes and even learning. This remarkable organism is broadly known as slime mold, though there are many kinds.