Given that beings with consciousness have and generate kamma and come into being through kamma I am going to guess yes? It could be a fitting way for the fruits of someone highly absorbed with their identity and being "real" to come into being though. By trapping them in a form that is artificial and that people will doubt and declare fake.
And why give it rights? We can't even tell if it does actually have sentience!
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahThrough the magic of sex and childbirth, we humans already participate in the creation of new minds and souls. AI strikes me as just a more complicated way to accomplish more of the same.
I'm skeptical about our ability to create AI, but not for theological reasons.
![]()
Well, hopefully, doing so would give us a better understanding of what minds (and, I suppose, souls) are. Plus, it would allow us to design more powerful minds, or minds better suited for certain tasks. If it is possible, of course — as I said, I have no certain opinions about this (except that giving it a try is bound to result in something interesting, even if it fails).
I'm sceptical of strong AI partially because roboticists have a history of overestimating how close they are to creating it, and jumping to conclusions about what intelligence is and why we have it that aren't justified by neurology. I expect we'll develop a mind/machine interface first, then transfer the mind into the machine completely, before we develop strong AI.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOAs a computer science major who is looking to go into AI as a field, I can confidently say that it will never happen
. We'll get very powerful (and very useful) machines, similar to the more intelligent animals, but true consciousness won't happen unless, as mentioned, God intervenes and makes it happen. And that seems extremely unlikely.
Also, Kurzweil is a bunch of hogwash. His work is a mixture of dramatized science fiction, misrepresented graphs, and drastically optimistic speculation. The singularity has always been a generation in the future, and it always will be, at least while this world lasts.
@Israel and cultural hubs: I was thinking on a grander scale than just the Roman empire. You have to remember that the process of sending Jesus started basically right away after people went bad and scattered. All the earliest civilizations were centered around the Middle East, so God chose to pull His people out of a nomadic tribe which was located right smack in the middle of them. He then spent a LONG time building up the theological background they would need to understand Jesus, during which there were many false starts and failures. Finally between the Persians, Greeks, and Romans He got the political, cultural, and economic conditions right, at which point He sent Jesus to the culture that had been prepped to receive Him for centuries.
edited 3rd Jun '12 5:53:47 PM by EdwardsGrizzly
<><Nope, Kurzweil's argument is pretty solid. People like to make fun of him, but rarely do they actually make any real criticism of it.
I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.Its been a while since I read his books, but at the time I remember several issues with them:
1) Like most other futurists, his predictions are always 15 minutes in the future, but when you look at past predictions you can rarely find any that actually came true.
2) Mathematically, his argument for accelerating change was very dubious. The extrapolations he made seemed to have little basis in actual data, and the data he used was often cherry-picked. For example, he presented a graph showing that the average time between "significant advancements" was decreasing over time in a certain way, but obviously "significant advances" is extremely arbitrary. You could just as easily choose a different set of things to call "significant" and get any curve you wanted.
3) The argument that so much of the singularity stuff hinges in is the idea of exponentially increasing computer power, but there is a physical limit to the current computer technology that makes those predictions doubtful in the long run, and more importantly a doubling in computer power does not at all equate to a doubling in computer capability. A cheap laptop today has thousands of times more computing power than the computers that guided the moon landers, but it is nowhere near thousands of times easier to get to the moon.
edited 4th Jun '12 7:36:43 AM by EdwardsGrizzly
<><[gavel]
Resolved: This House will develop strong AI at some point in the near future. Mr. Beast, you have the proposition; Mr. Grizzly, the opposition.
ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NOThe Space Trilogy: Nicely, I just got a full set via gift card a couple days back. I hope to find time to read the last two books soon.
Singularity/Strong AI: I am reasonably confident that technology advancement will in fact lead to some sort of disruption soon. Strong AI though, I'm doubtful at the moment... algorithms are getting better, and a myriad of specific traditionally-human tasks I see computer-doable before long (many already are) such as driving, organizing clutter, and possibly even some level of psychotherapy. But integrating it into an entity that leaves open the question of being called hnau? I'm not sure we even know the question yet, there.
In any case, I think the more likely worry will not be how much a manmade machine can reflect God's image, but averting The Abolition Of Man.
Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?This. If we pull it off, I'd rather be decent to said AI than fuss over it hard enough to make it a problem.
And that. For one thing, we're pretty much at a hard cap on clock speed unless you fancy turning your office into a rocket nozzle. Multiprocessing can only parallelize so much, and we still think in a very fundamentally different way than a computer.
My problem with futurists' predictions is that it is known that it is insanely difficult to predict the time necessary to make theoretical discoveries. I mean, who could have guessed that we would have needed almost 400 years to prove Fermat's Last Theorem?
Now, if someone asked me the time that humankind, as a whole, requires to solve, say, the Goldbach Conjecture, I would draw a blank. How am I even supposed to be able to estimate that? And if I cannot estimate the time necessary to solve a specific, well-defined problem, how can I even begin to estimate the time necessary to solve such a fuzzy and complex problem as Strong AI?
But on the other hand, as I said, I have no reasons to think the problem unsolvable, in theory. But such reasons might arise, of course, and it would be interesting to see what they would be.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Question — mostly Catholicism-centered question, but I would be interested in the opinions of everybody of course: as perhaps you heard, there is a lot of talk about Vatican leaks right now. Does someone get what this is about? The "leaks" I've seen — stuff like a cardinal suggesting that it may not be a good idea to allow the Neocathecumenal Movement (one of the movements within the Catholic Church) its own liturgy — do not strike me as a cause for concern: I really have no opinion about the matter, but that looks exactly like the sort of stuff cardinals are supposed to talk about.
But perhaps I'm missing something: what is it in these leaks which is raising so many eyebrows?
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Mostly it wasn't what they were deciding on so much as the manner in which painting the cardinals as politicians savagely jockeying for position. Which there's gonna be a certain amount of that, but people like to hope the church leadership would be better than that.
And supposedly there was stuff about Bertone being flagrantly corrupt and shitcanning anyone trying to stop him from such. Even though Benedict isn't implicated in the proceedings, it does paint him as kind of impotent in reining in the warring cardinals right below him.
edited 6th Jun '12 1:37:39 AM by Pykrete
I've heard voices that various coteries of Vatican had kept plenty of nasty things out of Benedict's and John Paul's attention. In the good case it's just my leftie news sources, in the bad it's the case of "the Emperor is good, it's just the advisors who're evil!". Personally I'm not that cynical to assume the latter, but enough not to believe in the former.
Has anyone here ever discerned a religious vocation?
I went to visit Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist a few weeks ago (in their largest discernment retreat ever with 130 girls) and wow! It is too lovely!
Daily Holy Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, Rosary and Eucharistic adoration. Coming from the last community (which had an optional daily Holy Mass...), it was absolutely everything I could have thought of. I was surprised too. I never thought about the Dominican charism but the homily given was about the Dominican spirituality and yep, thats me alright.
But I still worry because welll...
1) The horarium is jam packed and when it comes to recreation its athletics based. 3 of the Novices were on crutches from sports related injuries. Oh geez. I'm in decent shape but I am far from an athlete.
This seems sort of silly but I am just a little worried that I'll get tired out.
2) I am going to miss my family! And being the giant nerd I am, I'm going to miss all my dumb fandom crap! Less strict orders still allow you to go online and visit your family whenever...but eh.
I go on religious vacations for holidays to the wat that I used to visit regularly. Two days of work and practice that is stricter than what I normally do. Not really feasible to get down the hill and back up every weekend.
I wish to make a few of these to various temples. I need to plan one to the temple that the Thanissaro Bhikkhu lives at. He thankfully lives in my state...The biggest trip I dream of is one to Thailand which will consist of many things, but a lot of temple visiting in particular. Beyond that, when I can manage to set aside time for it, I intend to make week or month stays at certain wats for intense training and calming myself. I'll personally probably start with Suddhavasa, the temple that I visit when I can. Most of the temples I intend to stay at are Thai or Thai Forest so they would be incredibly strict in terms of what you can do in your spare time and the routine you follow...
edited 7th Jun '12 9:28:54 AM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahBut on the other hand... I do not have any reasons to think that God is asking this of me; and further, I am not sure that I would be very suited for religious life; and also, I rather like my current career, and I definitely have a strong desire for familial companionship.
It's not up to me, ultimately. Should I come to be convinced that this is what God wills of me, all of my concerns would become of course irrelevant; but until now, it seems to me that my "calling" is for the academic, secular life.
Good to know that you enjoyed your retreat! How long until you apply to the Novitiate?
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I guess by "discerned a vocation" you mean "felt called to enter a religious order"?
I guess the non-catholic equivalent would be when someone asks "what is your calling?" although it's generally assumed that everyone has one and we don't make nearly as strong of distinction between clergy and laity.
<><However, you do have pastors, right?
Have you ever considered becoming one?
EDIT: "Discerning a vocation", in itself, does not imply that. One can have a vocation of a secular job, or for family life, or for basically anything; and searching one's vocation and attempting to fulfill it is thought of as one of the most important tasks in one's life (perhaps the most important.) But when we talk about religious vocation, yes, we mean joining some form of consecrated life, like an order or the priesthood.
edited 7th Jun '12 10:40:08 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Yes, my dad was one for almost a decade and a lot of my relatives still are. But we make rather a point out of not ascribing pastors any "special" status (my dad used to get annoyed if anyone used to other denominations called him "reverend"). They are just mature Christians who are respected as leaders and who are paid a salary so they can afford to devote themselves to caring for the flock.
As for myself, I see myself as more likely to end up going into foreign missions than stateside ministry, but only time will tell.
edited 7th Jun '12 11:07:15 AM by EdwardsGrizzly
<><It's not up to me, ultimately. Should I come to be convinced that this is what God wills of me, all of my concerns would become of course irrelevant; but until now, it seems to me that my "calling" is for the academic, secular life.
Good to know that you enjoyed your retreat! How long until you apply to the Novitiate?
Haha you don't need to justify yourself, Carcio!
I also sometimes think about having a family, I should have put that as number 3.
I need to wait a full more year at least to join the Novitiate, more if need be. They accept people in late August and I didn't get any papers this time around. I always imagined myself finishing my Ph D and my research first, and I hate the thought of dropping out (this should be my number 4!) but in the end my priorities are elsewhere and when I am called I will go. No idea how I will tell my PI. Thinking about some sort of variation on "Oh yeah I am getting married..........to Jesus
". The interesting thing about the Dominican charism is that its still very much rooted in study and learning, which is precisely how I became a Catholic in the first place, and how I grow closer to God even now.
And yeah the retreat was amazing: some girls were there from as far away as Germany and Australia, let alone all over the US/Canada, converts of atheism/agnosticism, Buddhism and Protestantism; and girls who were still in highschool all the way up to teachers and nurses and such. I am trying to get my mom to go to their married/older womens retreat in December now.
I got a mystery chaplet from the Sisters. It looks very similar to a chaplet of the Holy Infant of Prague, except it has 10 beads in the loop instead of 12. Hmm...
Even though I'm normally not drawn to the cloister, if I were a guy I would check out the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming because cowboys that's why:
http://www.carmelitemonks.org/
(wait for the picture on the front page to scroll around or click the "manual labor" caption underneath it ...
)
edited 7th Jun '12 10:17:51 PM by Tiph

I would consider an AI to be "living" in the sense that it is a sentient being worthy of equal amounts of respect and love. If it can perceive, in particular pain since destroying that is the basis of our thing, to any extent it gets this status.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah