Re: This week's fun papers

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Sat Apr 15 2000 - 18:24:49 MDT


"xllb" <xllb@home.com> writes:

> Thank you for the links and reviews.
>
> I'm having great fun, mentally masticating the "Superior Createe" concept.
> Am I wrong or doesn't it follow evolution's course? If we can create
> entities that are greater than ourselves, is it reasonable to imagine that
> this ability is "omniversly" unique to us?

Normal evolution is not deliberately directed, it progresses in the
usual blind variation-replication-selection manner with no
memory. Intelligent entities are capable of creating systems based on
earlier experience and make deliberate jumps in form space that would
be unlikely with undirected evolution. While I would say deliberate
modifications and creation is part of the general phenomenon of
evolution it is very unlike natural evolution.

I don't know what you mean with "omniversely", so I cannot answer the
second question.

Hmm, let Suc(X) be the greatest entity the entity X can create. Then
we have the interesting question of there is an upper bound on the
series Suc(Suc(Suc(...(human)...))) - and perhaps even more relevant,
if we let Y_k(X) denote the k-th greatest entity that can be
constructed, if there is a series Y_k1(Y_k2(Y_k3(...(human)...))) with
greater upper bound than the first one (i.e., just going for the
maximum traps you in some kind of local maximum in the space of
possible entities). Actually, I expect that the problem of climbing
the toposophical ladders without getting trapped is likely
undecidable. Thats why we need societies - they are pools of different
approaches.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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