Jason,
I wrote:
(i've contemplated whether or not we can make robots that surpass human intelligence - and I realized that if we can't engineer human genes to make profound and perfectly efficient beings, then we can't make robots that exceed human intelligence)
I'll admit, what was sloppy about this sentence was the casual use of the phrase: 'human intelligence'.
A highly loaded term to say the least.
I think cosmic prostitute originally was trying to provoke a discussion about engineering a human in a way that makes the possibility of it becoming wise, profound, enlightened, a highly likely possibility.
But when undertaking such a task, one must ask; how did Diogones, Buddha, Chang-tsu become wise sages?
I would say that, above and beyond the quality of the environment that one is reared in, each persons enlightenment involves a great deal of emotion, from fear, to egotism, desire for happiness, confusion, hatred for confusion, love of discovery, revelation, etc, etc…
Lets use Quinn, Rowden, and Solway for example.
In order to make robots that are genius in the sense that this board uses the word, we must ask, how did each member of the QRS become wise and profound?
How can you explain the presence and activity of the QRS on this board?
What is driving them?
I say that a wise, enlightened human being is simply functioning according to a limited program that was established via emotion.
The QRS may not be emotional these days (lets at least pretend for the sake of this argument that they are not emotional these days), but the unemotional program that dictates their behavior these days
has been established via the unusually wide ranging emotional states of some yesterdays.
The unemotional program of wisdom/genius/enlightenment is like a knot tied by a hand that knows how to tie so well only because it has been driven by a feeling conscience, of being disturbed, fear, etc.
The program of being enlightened and wise may be inexorably begotten from a sense of responsibility that comes from being shocked, frightened, disturbed, there may have been a sense of mystery, of confusion, a feeling or sense of friendship, a feeling of loneliness, of alienation, a feeling of hatred, a painful feeling of inadequacy, inferiority, and thus a love of the absolute truths that trivialize a life of comfort and pleasure and thus diffuse the power of emotion, fear, comfort and pain.
When a wise man goes through the vast and subtle spectrum of emotion, (a requisite for human genius) he is left with an unemotional program that dictates his mental and physical activity.
I have come to realize that the action of the wise is born from meditating upon one thing and one thing only. And that is meditating upon the challenges of survival.
Surviving has implications, and those implications have become enormously complicated due to mans emotional, frightened and excitable nature, and thus man has been forced to contemplate on a complicated level, and this is because his survival has become complicated to the degree that his inputs have become pleasurable.
Animals survive without creating greater and greater problems for themselves, and that is because they do not seek greater and greater pleasures. They forage and hunt whatever nature provides, and they do not contrive to achieve greater comforts.
The program of both the human sage, and the robot sage, is based on the animal task of gathering or aligning itself with certain resources and expending or being propelled by them
in order to then engage in the activity of contemplating survival even more deeply, with greater and greater hindsight and foresight.
The program of your typical human, because he so corrupted by comfort and pleasure, is to engage in the activity of escaping from the thing that has become uncomfortable and depressing for him – and that thing is
long-term survival.
A wise program of intelligence will move the being into activity solely for the sake of surviving indefinitely.
A robot programmed to function on the level of an enlightened sage would probably be moved into action the moment it acknowledges any sort of activity that poses a threat to its survival.
It would probably find the animals of earth more rational than most humans.
Wisdom comes from evaluating a situation based on the involuntary preference to survive, rather than to adjust and become like those who are programmed to enjoy and feel pleasure, comfort and thus gradually degrade and self-destruct.
Humanities chances of survival decrease to the extent that it comforts itself.
A human will only be able to make a robot according to the interpretation the human has of itself.
In other words, Robots will be made in the image of Man, as man was
reportedly made in the image of God.
The robots that man makes, if they are wise, would most likely perceive the majority of humanity as a threat to itself survival, and begin taking action to ensure survival.
I wonder what action the robot would take?
