[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Why would the universe have a goal anyway?

Only conscious entities can have a goal, or pursue a desired condition.
The adjective universal means that any form of consciousness can share that universal goal.
It's possible for some conscious entities to deliberately defy that universal goal. But that position is inherently less sustainable, and most likely be superseded by their successors.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

so how can you say protecting life on earth can help this unknown goal?

Unknown to you doesn't mean unknown to others. If protecting life on earth is not part of your goals, maybe you are just wasting precious resources needed by the rest of us who wants to achieve that goal.

[Origin]

I stated:

But there is no universal terminal goal that you have identified

You replied:

I have. It seems like you have intentionally missed it.

You then supplied these quotes:

So, I think I have arrived to the final conclusion about universal terminal goal. It came from definitions of each word in the phrase, and take their implications into account. Goal is the noun, while terminal and universal are the adjectives that describe the noun.

The word Goal means preferred state or condition in the future. If it's not preferred, it can't be a goal. If it's already happened in the past, it can't be a goal either. Although it's possible that the goal is to make future condition similar to preferred condition in the past as reference. The preference requires the existence of at least one conscious entity. Preference can't exist in a universe without consciousness, so can't a goal.

The word Terminal requires that the goal is seen from the persepective of conscious entities that exist in the furthest conceivable future. If the future point of reference is too close to the present, it would expire soon and the goal won't be usable anymore.

The word Universal requires that no other constraint should be added to the goal determined by aforementioned words. The only valid constraints have already been set by the words goal and terminal.

I've summarized the core concepts of the thread into some videos which I collected in a playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ2PyRUoub7jJFt6uQ8Osxdg8zLtLN_1m

You define the words goal, terminal and universal.  I am pretty sure most people know the definition of these words.  The problem is you still have not stated what this universal terminal goal is.

I hope you don't expect me to watch a bunch of your videos to find out what you think this goal is.  Instead of trying to get hits on your Youtubes, why don't state what this goal is?

Only conscious entities can have a goal, or pursue a desired condition.

So are you saying the universe is conscious?

It's possible for some conscious entities to deliberately defy that universal goal. But that position is inherently less sustainable, and most likely be superseded by their successors

How can you consciously defy a goal that is not stated??

Unknown to you doesn't mean unknown to others.

Do you know these who "others" are who know the goal?  Maybe you could let me know who they are so I could ask them what the goal is since it is becoming obvious that you do not know what this alleged goal is.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You define the words goal, terminal and universal.  I am pretty sure most people know the definition of these words.  The problem is you still have not stated what this universal terminal goal is.

I hope you don't expect me to watch a bunch of your videos to find out what you think this goal is.  Instead of trying to get hits on your Youtubes, why don't state what this goal is?

Why did you deliberately remove the part you were asking for?

The only similarity applicable to every conscious being, regardless of their shape, form, size, and ingredients, is that they want to extend the existence of consciousness further into the future.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So are you saying the universe is conscious?

If that's your conclusion from my statements, you surely haven't watched my video here.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How can you consciously defy a goal that is not stated??

Your ignorance of it doesn't change the fact that the goal has been stated, although it does make you impossible to consciously defy that goal.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Do you know these who "others" are who know the goal?  Maybe you could let me know who they are so I could ask them what the goal is since it is becoming obvious that you do not know what this alleged goal is.

Elon Musk explicitly stated in some interviews about his goal to protect consciousness. Many of his supporters also shared their views in the comment sections. I think it's obvious that you do not know what this goal is.

[alancalverd]

Elon Musk will say anything that makes money, even if it is meaningless. Indeed the best advertising has no meaning, so you can't be prosecuted for failing to deliver.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Elon Musk will say anything that makes money, even if it is meaningless. Indeed the best advertising has no meaning, so you can't be prosecuted for failing to deliver.

I have no way to verify if he meant what he said, except by comparing them with what he did.
But at least some of his statements make sense to me.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Goals, regardless of their universality, are technically memes.

Memes, Genes, and Brain Viruses

welcome to my meme complication video lolz rolf!!1! if you laugh you lose and you have to start the video over!! or if you blink or utilize any facial muscles ! failing to restart or share the video will result in infinite suffering, success will result in infinite bliss.

In the end, the memes that will eventually survive depend on their contributions to the sustainability of their hosts.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You define the words goal, terminal and universal.  I am pretty sure most people know the definition of these words.  The problem is you still have not stated what this universal terminal goal is.

I hope you don't expect me to watch a bunch of your videos to find out what you think this goal is.  Instead of trying to get hits on your Youtubes, why don't state what this goal is?

Why did you deliberately remove the part you were asking for?

The only similarity applicable to every conscious being, regardless of their shape, form, size, and ingredients, is that they want to extend the existence of consciousness further into the future.

You may ask further about consciousness, which plays the core concept in universal terminal goal.
I defined consciousness in my video #3 in the video series on Universal Utopia.

Some people got confused and think that consciousness is mindboggling and inaccessible to science. A contributing cause of their confusion is a false dichotomy about consciousness. At 9:40 Susan Greenfield dismantles this dichotomy by thinking about unconsciousness instead. People are easier to accept that unconsciousness comes in degrees. it's continuously variable.
If you can have graded levels continuously variable states of unconsciousness, couldn't you have similarly graded levels continuously variable states of consciousness?

Susan Greenfield - Is Consciousness Irreducible?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Have a controversial idea? Good. Here?s why you should share it. | Peter Singer

Ideas that seem wildly controversial today may move humanity towards progress. Philosopher Peter Singer asks ?how do we keep them from being stifled?

Peter Singer explains why he helped create the ?Journal of Controversial Ideas,? a platform for discussing and examining controversial topics without fear of backlash or censorship.

According to Singer, history is rife with examples of people challenging beliefs that were once considered certain but were later proven false. Persecuting those people who challenged those prevailing notions, Singer says, stifled progress.

Singer underscores the importance of protecting academic freedom and freedom of thought and expression as fundamental to societal progress and knowledge advancement.

[alancalverd]

Persecuting those people who challenged those prevailing notions, Singer says, stifled progress.

but guaranteed the careers and pensions of those who preached orthodoxy. Which is why they do it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Peter Singer explains why he helped create the ?Journal of Controversial Ideas,? a platform for discussing and examining controversial topics without fear of backlash or censorship.

I've created an account in the journal, and prepared my first article to be submitted there. It will be the identification of the universal terminal goal. It becomes increasingly necessary to solve goal alignment problem as the arrival of AGI and ASI is getting more imminent. Extremely powerful ASI models without aligned goal pose real danger to the world.

I made my videos using PowerPointPowerPoint with some voice over. It seems like I need to convert them to PDF format and convert the voice to text. Fortunately I still keep the text files used for text to speech converter. Let's see what the editors have to say about my ideas.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The universality of a terminal goal can be tested by how much diversity of the environment where it can be applied, and how much diversity of the entities who can sustainably apply it.

The universality is the default value, restricted only by the definition of goal itself. Any less restriction makes you lose the goal. While additional restrictions makes you lose the universality.

A universal goal refers to something that's universally required by any goal without exception. It's specified by the definition of goal itself.
Now that a goal here is defined as a pursued condition, the existence of entities who can pursue that condition becomes necessary. Otherwise there would be no goal in the first place. Here we call the capability to pursue goal as consciousness.

At this point, some of you may think that it's all trivial word play. But note that many of us had come to wrong conclusions. Philosophers around the world had contemplated for millenia but still couldn't find it.

Some of us may think that it's useless and a waste of time. But remember that sooner or later, superintelligent entities will come to us. Perhaps in the form of extraterrestrial aliens. But more likely, they're swarms of machines kickstarted by humans. The universal terminal goal is the fundamental safe guard to keep them from doing unnecessary harms and destructions in exploration of the universe and finding meaning of their own existence.

By being much smarter than all humans combined, there's no doubt that future ASI will eventually successful in identifying the universal terminal goal, and use it as the reference of the universal moral compass and to form universal moral standards in their processes of making decisions. But it's important for us to correctly find it first and use it in their training data before they get too powerful. Costs from mistakes and wrong conclusions could be unbearable by then.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here is the truth table for universal terminal goal.

1 in the left column means that there is something called a goal, while 0 means denial of it.
The middle column classifies the goals in time domain. 1 means there are terminal goals, while 0 means all goals are temporary/instrumental.
The right column classifies the goals in spatial domain. 1 means there are universal goals, while 0 means all goals are partial.
x in the bottom row means that their values are meaningless, since the existence of goals have already been denied.

Those who take the position of the first row think that there exist a universal terminal goal.
Those who take the position of the second row think that there exist some terminal goals, but they vary between different parts of the universe.
Those who take the position of the third row think that there exist a universal goal, but they change with time.
Those who take the position of the fourth row think that there exist some goals, but none of them are terminal nor universal.
Those who take the position of the fifth row think that goals simply don't exist.

My previous argumentation to reject second position of the table, as shown in my video at 3:33 was very weak.

Here's how to improve it.

Rejecting the existence of a universal goal means rejecting the existence of a common characteristics universally necessarily shared among every goal. But by definition, a goal is a pursued condition, which requires the existence of a pursuer. Rejecting the necessity of the existence of a goal pursuer means rejecting the existence of a goal itself. It contradicts the acceptance of the existence of goal as stated in position 2 in the table.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Following the rabbit hole, the word pursue will need to be properly defined as well. What it is, and what it is not.
from dictionary,

1.
follow (someone or something) in order to catch or attack them.
"the officer pursued the van"
Similar:
go after
run after
follow
chase
give chase to
hunt
stalk
track
trail
trace
shadow
dog
hound
course
tail
Opposite:
avoid
flee
seek to form a sexual relationship with (someone) in a persistent way.
"Sophie was being pursued by a number of men"
Similar:
woo
court
pay court to
pay suit to
chase after
chase
run after
make up to
make love to
romance
set one's cap at
seek the hand of
pay addresses to
seek to attain or accomplish (a goal) over a long period.
"should people pursue their own happiness at the expense of others?"
Similar:
strive for
push toward
work toward
try for
seek
search for
quest (after)
be intent on
aim at/for
have as a goal
have as an objective
aspire to
Opposite:
eschew
ARCHAIC?LITERARY
(of something unpleasant) persistently afflict (someone).
"mercy lasts as long as sin pursues man"

2.
(of a person or way) continue or proceed along (a path or route).
"the road pursued a straight course over the scrubland"
engage in (an activity or course of action).
"Andrew was determined to pursue a computer career"
Similar:
engage in
be engaged in
be occupied in
participate in
take part in
work at
practice
follow
prosecute
conduct
ply
apply oneself to
go in for
take up
Opposite:
shun
continue to investigate, explore, or discuss (a topic, idea, or argument).
"we shall not pursue the matter any further"

Similar:
conduct
undertake
follow
carry on
devote oneself to
go on with
proceed with
go ahead with
keep/carry on with
continue with

The relevant definition is marked bold. It looks somewhat circular for our reasoning.
But IMO, something can only be pursued if there is non-zero probability of failure. If a condition is always fulfilled no matter what, it is not pursued. Note that time constraint plays a role here. For example, death of a human individual is  virtually certain, sooner or later. But their death in a specific date/time is not guaranteed. This example may sound weird, but it's common in conflict situations.

[alancalverd]

But IMO, something can only be pursued if there is non-zero probability of failure.

An entrepreneur decided to invest in poodle racing. He took six poodles to a dog track where they watched greyhounds chasing the electric hare for a few races, then put the poodles in the traps. The hare came whizzing past, the traps opened, the poodles walked out, sat down, and waited for the hare to come round again.

Pursuit takes many forms.

Intelligence is constructive laziness.

But remember that sooner or later, superintelligent entities will come to us.

Probably not. There's no evidence of such a visitation in the last 4,500,000,000 years and homo sapiens is unlikely to survive another million, so the likelihood of anything you might consider more intelligent than us visiting anything that looks like us, is (Bayes) not more than 1 in 9,000 even assuming they know where we are and can be arsed to make the journey.  And why would they?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Probably not. There's no evidence of such a visitation in the last 4,500,000,000 years and homo sapiens is unlikely to survive another million, so the likelihood of anything you might consider more intelligent than us visiting anything that looks like us, is (Bayes) not more than 1 in 9,000 even assuming they know where we are and can be arsed to make the journey.  And why would they?

It depends on the model we use and the assumptions taken into consideration. We also need to be aware of black swan theory.

[alancalverd]

Black swans were assumed to be nonexistent because nobody had reported any, until they turned up.

Not the same analysis by any means. There are three aspects to my statement: (a) no evidence of previous visits in x years and (b) assuming that there is something out there, what is the probability of its finding us before we are extinct in the next y years? Bayesian statistics says y/x = 1/9000 or thereabouts. (c) Now multiply by z,  the likelihood that a superintelligent species has the time, inclination and capability of looking for and visiting a less intelligent one, and you have the nonzero but very small probability P = yz/x of this particular black swan turning up.

Now consider what you can do about it. Said visitor by definition has more intelligence and more capability than us, and an unknown objective in making the visit. So we can't prevent it or predict the outcome. So there's no point in worrying about it - your black swan has become a lightning strike!