Well, I ran several topics together in the same post, and that was perhaps careless planning. And, in any case I do not expect slavish agreement just because I make the claim.
And, neither should you, just by flatly denying it, with nary a word to clue me in about your reservations about what has, in the last 10 years, transitioned from a convenient metaphor in quantum physics, cosmology, and other disciplines, to a growing consensus about the actual truth of things. (Objections to this growing consensus, when they actually are made, seem to be mostly arguments from guffaw, resembling the famous "I refute you thus" joke about Berkeleyan idealism.)
By the way, I am not defending Berkeleyan idealism, still less the theistic underpinning that kept popping up in his thought (I am an atheist.)
Rather, as for most thinkers, who cite the famous joke about someone kicking a solid object as a "proof" that Berkeley's virtual phenomenalism was self-evidently foolish, the point of my usage of that joke is to show it misses the point. Of course it seems phenomenologically, like the world is made of "stuff".
And information doesn't seem to be "real stuff." (The earth seems flat, too. So what?)
Had we time, you and I could debate the relative merits of an information-based, scientifically literate metaphysics, with whatever alternate notion of reality you subscribe to in its place, as your scientifically literate metaphysics.
But make no mistake, everyone subscribes to some kind of metaphysics, just as everyone has a working ontology -- or candidate, provisional set of ontologies.
Even the most "anti-metaphysical" theorists are operating from a (perhaps unacknowledged) metaphysics and working ontology; it is just that they think theirs, because it is invisible to them, is beyond need of conceptual excavation and clarification, and beyond the reach of critical, rational examination -- whereas other people's metaphysics is acutally a metaphysics (argh), and thus carries an elevated burden of proof relative to their ontology.
I am not saying you are like this, of course. I don't know your views. As I say, it could be the subject of a whole forum like this one. So I'll end by saying disagreement is inevitable, especially when I just drop in a remark as I did, about a topic that is actually somewhat tangential (though, as I will try to argue as the forum proceeds, not all that tangential.)
Yes, Bostrom explicitly says he is not concerned with the metaphysics of mind, in his book. Good for him. It's his book, and he can write it any way he chooses.
And I understand his editorial choice. He is trained as a philosopher, and knows as well as anyone that there are probably millions of pages written about the mind body problem, with more added daily. It is easy to understand his decision to avoid getting stuck in the quicksand of arguing specifics about consciousness, how it can be physically realized.
This book obviously has a different mission. I have written for publication before, and I know one has to make strategic choices (with one's agent and editor.)
Likewise, his book is also not about "object-level" work in AI -- how to make it, achieve it, give it this or that form, give it "real mental states", emotion, drives. Those of us trying to understand how to achieve those things, still have much to learn from Bostrom's current book, but will not find intricate conceptual investigations of what will lead to the new science of sentience design.
Still, I would have preferred if he had found a way to "stipulate" Conscious AI, along with speed AI, Quality AI, etc, as one of the flavors that might arise. Then we could address quesions under 4 headings, 4 possible AI worlds (not necessarily mutually exclusive, just as the three from this week are not mutually exclusive.)
The question of the "direct reach" of conscious AI, compared to the others, would have been very interesting.
It is a meta-level book about AI, deliberately ambiguous about consciousness. I think that makes the discussion harder, in many areas.
I like Bostrom. I've been reading his papers for 10 or 15 years.
But avoiding or proscribing the question of whether we have consciousness AND intelligence (vs simply intelligent behavior sans consciousness) thus pruning away, preemptively, issues that could depend on: whether they interact; whether the former increases causal powers -- or instability or stability -- in the exercise of the latter; and so on, keeps lots of questions inherently ambiguous.
I'll try to make good on that last claim, one way or another, during the next couple of weekly sessions.
A growing consensus isn't a done deal.
It's a matter if fact that information ontology i isn't the established consensus in the way that evolution is. You are entitled to opinions, but not to pass off opinions as fact. There is enough confusion about physics already.
You bring in the issue of objections to information ontology The unstated argument seems to be that since there are no valid objections, there is nothing to stop it becoming the established consensus, so it is as good as.
What would a universe in which information is not fundamental look like, ...
This is part of a weekly reading group on Nick Bostrom's book, Superintelligence. For more information about the group, and an index of posts so far see the announcement post. For the schedule of future topics, see MIRI's reading guide.
Welcome. This week we discuss the fifth section in the reading guide: Forms of superintelligence. This corresponds to Chapter 3, on different ways in which an intelligence can be super.
This post summarizes the section, and offers a few relevant notes, and ideas for further investigation. Some of my own thoughts and questions for discussion are in the comments.
There is no need to proceed in order through this post, or to look at everything. Feel free to jump straight to the discussion. Where applicable and I remember, page numbers indicate the rough part of the chapter that is most related (not necessarily that the chapter is being cited for the specific claim).
Reading: Chapter 3 (p52-61)
Summary
Notes
In-depth investigations
If you are particularly interested in these topics, and want to do further research, these are a few plausible directions, some inspired by Luke Muehlhauser's list, which contains many suggestions related to parts of Superintelligence. These projects could be attempted at various levels of depth.
How to proceed
This has been a collection of notes on the chapter. The most important part of the reading group though is discussion, which is in the comments section. I pose some questions for you there, and I invite you to add your own. Please remember that this group contains a variety of levels of expertise: if a line of discussion seems too basic or too incomprehensible, look around for one that suits you better!
Next week, we will talk about 'intelligence explosion kinetics', a topic at the center of much contemporary debate over the arrival of machine intelligence. To prepare, read Chapter 4, The kinetics of an intelligence explosion (p62-77). The discussion will go live at 6pm Pacific time next Monday 20 October. Sign up to be notified here.