[Preview] Reviewing Ben Goertzel's blog post on the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe

@BigBiff88 7 months ago

Excellent video brother. Would love to see Ben and Chris on TOE or your own channel

@jabowery 7 months ago

Although I think I've adequately closed one open parameter in AIXI (Algorithmic Information Theory's "choice" of Universal Turing Machine may be filled by a Quine-like maneuver involving directed cyclical N-input NOR (or NAND) graphs) the remaining open parameter is the "choice" of utility function. Although I don't claim this is the only inadequacy of AIXI, it is most obviously the one where the CTMU's notion of "generalized" utility may enter the increasingly absurd "discourse" over "AGI alignment" and gently guide the present hysteria toward resolution of these inadequacies. Certainly if one examines Hutter's paper "A Complete Theory of Everything (will be subjective)" it does take things to a deliberately "absurd" limit that invites resolution of what "subjective" means by way of a unified notion of identity entailing generalized utility "Of Everyone/thing".

@novaterra777 7 months ago

What the commenters on Ben's post seemed to have missed is that there is something to consider beyond the thing which i have coined the 'pointless absolute state considerations'. So consider a fully inert universe where nothing is in motion, this is akin to non existence because there is no action. All talk of this becomes pointless because we have not observed this behaviour within any scale of nature, and it is also a self-defeating notion of reality that needs to be discarded. Existence exists and so on, semantics be damned in this context. Of course there is the concept of a dual opposite of that same concept where we have a universe that is completely chaotic and things are in constant uncontrolled motion, making distinction impossible from any vantage point. Once again fun for philosophy debate class but not real. Both of these insanities have been condensed into the Big Bang notion. "Metaphysically, Langan’s theory seems restricted to Peircean Thirds. Langan says “everything essential to reality, including everything needed to describe it, is contained in reality itself”. But this assumes “everything” is contained within the realm of description — i.e. it rules out Peircean Firsts and Seconds. This is implicit in the “everything is language” approach. Langan may well see this as a feature; I see it as a bug…. " That's a Gnostic statement after the fact but i digress; what people seem to fail to understand is that language is not strictly referring to the means we communicate with each other AT ALL. It needs to taken as 'any meaningful information exchange'. In other words, change is fundamental to reality, because meaningful information exchange is equal to change of status -somewhere-. Every fundamental interaction between elements of reality equals communication and therefore language. And let's be fair, im tired of all the matrix and brain in a vat/ simulation postulates. Just pull the plug already if thats true. Would that not have been convenient? No we are pretty close to base-line reality but having some very painful structural problems.

@sirelegant2002 7 months ago

In terms of understanding the CTMU phenomenologically, is this equivalent to understanding one's own mind? Also, could you elaborate on the informational-zeroness, backgroundless "realm" you mentioned?