A Resource Based Economy

[mobodick]

That is why people try to grow complexity nowadays, instead of designing it. It turns out evolution is pretty efficient at this process despite its seeming inefficiency of exploring a possibility space.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-just-like-tokyo-rail-system/

Yeah, lots of these 'most efficient routes' can be solved by dynamic systems.
Ants are known to solve the 'traveling salesman' problem.
It's a system often happening in evolution to find a balanced dynamic.
Just create lots of variations and whatever sticks is also somehow better at dealing with the environment and so it is a 'better' organism.

[mobodick]

Nonsense.
An amoeba can adapt to its surroundings but i don't see it being 'creative'.
My computer can draw graphics autonomously (without me telling it what to do) and yet it never showed any creativity (unless you mean the artifacts from overheating )

Indeed creativity is not necessary for autonomy.  My bad.  Yet it is usefull.  And humans use it, so if machines are to do as good a job as humans, they might need to use it too.

No, you were probably correct in the first place.  The amoeba was amazingly creative in that it did things that up until that point had never been done.  Not creative by our elite human standards.

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.
I can assure you DNA molecules don't have intentions.
Intentions are a result of brains and so cannot precede them.
Amoeba simply did what their genes were programmed to do with a healthy dose of randomness and those things they did turned out to make them better at survival and thereby making more of the genes that happen to survive etc.

Creativity, like all other abstract concepts that have no specific physical entity that they point to and predates them, is a human creation.

Well, not exactly.
I think that, for instance, all mammals posses a certain degree of creativity.
We as a species just happen to have a lot of it.
My point is just that creativity requires certain specific brain structures.
Without them an organism cannot be creative.

[Crypt_Current]

Nonsense.
An amoeba can adapt to its surroundings but i don't see it being 'creative'.
My computer can draw graphics autonomously (without me telling it what to do) and yet it never showed any creativity (unless you mean the artifacts from overheating )

Indeed creativity is not necessary for autonomy.  My bad.  Yet it is usefull.  And humans use it, so if machines are to do as good a job as humans, they might need to use it too.

No, you were probably correct in the first place.  The amoeba was amazingly creative in that it did things that up until that point had never been done.  Not creative by our elite human standards.

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.
I can assure you DNA molecules don't have intentions.
Intentions are a result of brains and so cannot precede them.
Amoeba simply did what their genes were programmed to do with a healthy dose of randomness and those things they did turned out to make them better at survival and thereby making more of the genes that happen to survive etc.

Creativity, like all other abstract concepts that have no specific physical entity that they point to and predates them, is a human creation.

Well, not exactly.
I think that, for instance, all mammals posses a certain degree of creativity.
We as a species just happen to have a lot of it.
My point is just that creativity requires certain specific brain structures.
Without them an organism cannot be creative.

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

[mobodick]

Nonsense.
An amoeba can adapt to its surroundings but i don't see it being 'creative'.
My computer can draw graphics autonomously (without me telling it what to do) and yet it never showed any creativity (unless you mean the artifacts from overheating )

Indeed creativity is not necessary for autonomy.  My bad.  Yet it is usefull.  And humans use it, so if machines are to do as good a job as humans, they might need to use it too.

No, you were probably correct in the first place.  The amoeba was amazingly creative in that it did things that up until that point had never been done.  Not creative by our elite human standards.

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.
I can assure you DNA molecules don't have intentions.
Intentions are a result of brains and so cannot precede them.
Amoeba simply did what their genes were programmed to do with a healthy dose of randomness and those things they did turned out to make them better at survival and thereby making more of the genes that happen to survive etc.

Creativity, like all other abstract concepts that have no specific physical entity that they point to and predates them, is a human creation.

Well, not exactly.
I think that, for instance, all mammals posses a certain degree of creativity.
We as a species just happen to have a lot of it.
My point is just that creativity requires certain specific brain structures.
Without them an organism cannot be creative.

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

Aah, well, then you just have to make your idea of creativity a little wider.
Like intelligence, creativity is something we can recognise in other organisms than just humans.
You are maybe refering to the specific human form of creativity.
I'm not talking about the 'a human making a painting' type of creativity.
I was talking about the possibility of an organism to dynamically recombine old information into new information that may help it to deal with the environment better.
We humans have so much of this recombinatory stuff that we invented things like fiction to account for the shitload of stuff we can imagine.
But the process of creativity is not exclusive to humans.

[mobodick]

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

And why do you think that is a strange expression?

[myrkul]

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

And why do you think that is a strange expression?

[sic] is literary for "Not my fuckup."

possess

to have as belonging to one; have as property; own: to possess a house and a car.

[blablahblah]

As far as I can tell, I'm the only consciousness in existence, and "everything else" is just a product of my imagination in my little universe.

That paradigm is solipsism, and is not logically cogent.

Thanks! Put another way: my illogical conviction that I have consciousness, trumps logic. Does yours?

...
I agree with you on consciousness and intelligence being emergent from basic physical properties...

Various things can exhibit intelligence in a mechanical sense. Algorithmic cleverness, speed, efficiency, maybe even the subjective appearance of creativity when trying to solve a problem. But how do you know consciousness exists in other beings? A sufficiently clever organic computer might trick you by spontaneously opening its eyes after sleeping like a human for 8 hours, whereas in fact it's a 'zombie'.

[grondilu]

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.

Weren't you the one who was accusing of projecting human aspects on artificial intelligence?

Creativity is the capability of creating stuff.  Whatever method is used to do so does not matter.

Did a Computer Bug Help Deep Blue Beat Kasparov?

Creativity often hides serendipity.

[Crypt_Current]

Nonsense.
An amoeba can adapt to its surroundings but i don't see it being 'creative'.
My computer can draw graphics autonomously (without me telling it what to do) and yet it never showed any creativity (unless you mean the artifacts from overheating )

Indeed creativity is not necessary for autonomy.  My bad.  Yet it is usefull.  And humans use it, so if machines are to do as good a job as humans, they might need to use it too.

No, you were probably correct in the first place.  The amoeba was amazingly creative in that it did things that up until that point had never been done.  Not creative by our elite human standards.

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.
I can assure you DNA molecules don't have intentions.
Intentions are a result of brains and so cannot precede them.
Amoeba simply did what their genes were programmed to do with a healthy dose of randomness and those things they did turned out to make them better at survival and thereby making more of the genes that happen to survive etc.

Creativity, like all other abstract concepts that have no specific physical entity that they point to and predates them, is a human creation.

Well, not exactly.
I think that, for instance, all mammals posses a certain degree of creativity.
We as a species just happen to have a lot of it.
My point is just that creativity requires certain specific brain structures.
Without them an organism cannot be creative.

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

Aah, well, then you just have to make your idea of creativity a little wider.
Like intelligence, creativity is something we can recognise in other organisms than just humans.
You are maybe refering to the specific human form of creativity.
I'm not talking about the 'a human making a painting' type of creativity.
I was talking about the possibility of an organism to dynamically recombine old information into new information that may help it to deal with the environment better.
We humans have so much of this recombinatory stuff that we invented things like fiction to account for the shitload of stuff we can imagine.
But the process of creativity is not exclusive to humans.

Like I said earlier, the amoeba was being creative.  So are the mammals.
But they could not have been "being creative", even if they were doing the exact same things, before humans existed, because creativity is an abstract concept and the TERMINOLOGY did not exist before humans invented it.
Fork in the road:  The actual definition of the words "create", "creation", "creative" and "creativity" are concretely defined, but is this different than the abstract concept of "creative" that we are speaking of here?

[mobodick]

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

And why do you think that is a strange expression?

[sic] is literary for "Not my fuckup."

aah, i don't care too much about spelling when i type english.

possess

to have as belonging to one; have as property; own: to possess a house and a car.

bingo

[Crypt_Current]

Nonsense.
An amoeba can adapt to its surroundings but i don't see it being 'creative'.
My computer can draw graphics autonomously (without me telling it what to do) and yet it never showed any creativity (unless you mean the artifacts from overheating )

Indeed creativity is not necessary for autonomy.  My bad.  Yet it is usefull.  And humans use it, so if machines are to do as good a job as humans, they might need to use it too.

No, you were probably correct in the first place.  The amoeba was amazingly creative in that it did things that up until that point had never been done.  Not creative by our elite human standards.

Nope.
Creativity implies intention.
I can assure you DNA molecules don't have intentions.
Intentions are a result of brains and so cannot precede them.
Amoeba simply did what their genes were programmed to do with a healthy dose of randomness and those things they did turned out to make them better at survival and thereby making more of the genes that happen to survive etc.

Creativity, like all other abstract concepts that have no specific physical entity that they point to and predates them, is a human creation.

Well, not exactly.
I think that, for instance, all mammals posses a certain degree of creativity.
We as a species just happen to have a lot of it.
My point is just that creativity requires certain specific brain structures.
Without them an organism cannot be creative.

My point is that when you say "all mammals posses [sic] a certain degree of creativity", you are imposing the concept on them.  If there were no humans, creativity would not exist, but that is not to say any actions of any entity would change or would have been changed in any way.

Aah, well, then you just have to make your idea of creativity a little wider.
Like intelligence, creativity is something we can recognise in other organisms than just humans.
You are maybe refering to the specific human form of creativity.
I'm not talking about the 'a human making a painting' type of creativity.
I was talking about the possibility of an organism to dynamically recombine old information into new information that may help it to deal with the environment better.
We humans have so much of this recombinatory stuff that we invented things like fiction to account for the shitload of stuff we can imagine.
But the process of creativity is not exclusive to humans.

Like I said earlier, the amoeba was being creative.  So are the mammals.
But they could not have been "being creative", even if they were doing the exact same things, before humans existed, because creativity is an abstract concept and the TERMINOLOGY did not exist before humans invented it.
Fork in the road:  The actual definition of the words "create", "creation", "creative" and "creativity" are concretely defined, but is this different than the abstract concept of "creative" that we are speaking of here?

Also, I implied but meant to explicitly state that it is the underlying terminology (information codified into symbols) that facilitates our abstract conversation that we have now.  The monkeys and amoebas could not do that, so this sort of "creativity" was not available to them.  Maybe it will be someday.

[myrkul]

Creativity ~= unpredictability.

The last thing we need is a "creative" computer system running the world.

[mobodick]

Like I said earlier, the amoeba was being creative.  So are the mammals.
But they could not have been "being creative", even if they were doing the exact same things, before humans existed, because creativity is an abstract concept and the TERMINOLOGY did not exist before humans invented it.
Fork in the road:  The actual definition of the words "create", "creation", "creative" and "creativity" are concretely defined, but is this different than the abstract concept of "creative" that we are speaking of here?

Well, i would say that the amoeba was not creative because i think creativity implies at least a kind of neural-like system.
It's about dynamical systems absorbing information and recombining that information into something new and usefull.
An amoeba has no mechanisms for acting in new ways on basis of acquired information, unless you consider a random mutation of its genes as acquiring information.
It can only change its set of behaviours by reproducing and hoping there are variations with a change that makes them work better.

[kjj]

Now I'm confused.  You posted a link to a state that existed from 930 to 1262 as evidence of the viability of a system invented by a guy born in 1819.  Did Gustave invent anarcho-capitalism, or the time machine?

I'd expect better respect for freedom from someone with "Amagi" as their user pic... You said that running defense and justice on the free market had never been tested. I showed you when it had. Worked for even longer than the republics that have been tested so far. Gustave de Molinari simply put that together with ideas from his contemporaries, and came to the quite reasonable conclusion that if a monopoly is bad in one sector of the economy, it's bad in every sector. Market competition ensures fairness in the pricing and dispensation of produce, and it will (and has) ensured fairness in the pricing and dispensation of protection and justice.

Meh.  50,000 (very homogenous) people on an island is hardly a test.  Proof of concept, maybe.  Also, see here.

And most of his detractors don't take his assumptions on faith.  Justice and defense aren't necessarily "sectors of the economy".

Just one example, in the USA the justice system is creaky and inefficient by design because a group of people were horrified by the efficient systems they had seen elsewhere in the world.  It is a price that they (and we) were willing to pay.  It may be possible for a market to produce the same or better outcome for less cost, but it is not at all obvious.

[Crypt_Current]

Creativity ~= unpredictability.

The last thing we need is a "creative" computer system running the world.

I don't fully agree with that definition, but going with it for argument's sake:
Predictable or not (assuming we mean "predictable" here as "predictable by humans" [arrogant IMO]), if the ruling class (in this case sentient machines) is actually smarter, more powerful, and more able to rule the world than humans, than humans simply have no say anymore.  It would not matter if the ruling computer system came to the (much processed) conclusion that humanity should be eradicated -- it would be a good and correct decision, because the smartest most powerful class of intelligence in existence has deemed it so.
It is my belief (I am admittedly biased in at least this one aspect) that the point of the universe is to fill itself with intelligence, and humanity is a step in this process.  How long that step lasts and its other details such as its end may not be for the step itself to create, and it is comforting to me to accept this.  BUT, it does not mean that this step in the process cannot try as hard as it wills to fully control it or otherwise be a part of other steps / the larger process.

[myrkul]

It would not matter if the ruling computer system came to the (much processed) conclusion that humanity should be eradicated -- it would be a good and correct decision, because the smartest most powerful class of intelligence in existence has deemed it so.

Well.

You're insane. I suspected it, before, but this confirms it.

[DoomDumas]

Just inform yourself about Edward Bernays

Begin here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

I've actually read Propaganda. Can you say the same?

I say again: Communism doesn't work, techno-communism will not work either, and as a bonus, when it collapses, the proles won't know how to farm. So, congratulations, you've perfected Communism, it now has a 100% kill rate.

Did'nt read it, nice to talk with informed / educated peoples here

[mobodick]

Creativity ~= unpredictability.

The last thing we need is a "creative" computer system running the world.

I don't fully agree with that definition, but going with it for argument's sake:
Predictable or not (assuming we mean "predictable" here as "predictable by humans" [arrogant IMO]), if the ruling class (in this case sentient machines) is actually smarter, more powerful, and more able to rule the world than humans, than humans simply have no say anymore.  It would not matter if the ruling computer system came to the (much processed) conclusion that humanity should be eradicated -- it would be a good and correct decision, because the smartest most powerful class of intelligence in existence has deemed it so.

So it also doesn't matter to a wolf when humans decide that a wolf-less world is better for them?
And that justifies the humans killing all the wolfs? Because, you know, they are more intelligent?
Great way forward!
 

You make the error of thinking that something that exceeds humans evolutionary development would not be selfish.
You also make the error of thinking that having a human-like intelligence regulating society is optimal.

I don't think we need a human-like AI at all but if you insist you still have a problem in that it will have its own ideas of what is good or bad that don't stroke well with what humans think is good or bad. That is what human-like intelligence is all about.

It is my belief (I am admittedly biased in at least this one aspect) that the point of the universe is to fill itself with intelligence, and humanity is a step in this process.  How long that step lasts and its other details such as its end may not be for the step itself to create, and it is comforting to me to accept this.  BUT, it does not mean that this step in the process cannot try as hard as it wills to fully control it or otherwise be a part of other steps / the larger process.

The way the universe seems to be developing (dark energy and all) the informational density of our universe will approach zero in the long run.
Intelligence is not converging on any large scale.

[mobodick]

Creativity ~= unpredictability.

The last thing we need is a "creative" computer system running the world.

I don't fully agree with that definition, but going with it for argument's sake:
Predictable or not (assuming we mean "predictable" here as "predictable by humans" [arrogant IMO]), if the ruling class (in this case sentient machines) is actually smarter, more powerful, and more able to rule the world than humans, than humans simply have no say anymore.  It would not matter if the ruling computer system came to the (much processed) conclusion that humanity should be eradicated -- it would be a good and correct decision, because the smartest most powerful class of intelligence in existence has deemed it so.

So it also doesn't matter to a wolf when humans decide that a wolf-less world is better for them?

You're asuming humans are more inteligent than wolves, but that is not true.

Heh,. maybe not, but we can be intelligent in way more ways!
That is what makes human brains different from other mammals brains.

[mobodick]

Creativity ~= unpredictability.

The last thing we need is a "creative" computer system running the world.

I don't fully agree with that definition, but going with it for argument's sake:
Predictable or not (assuming we mean "predictable" here as "predictable by humans" [arrogant IMO]), if the ruling class (in this case sentient machines) is actually smarter, more powerful, and more able to rule the world than humans, than humans simply have no say anymore.  It would not matter if the ruling computer system came to the (much processed) conclusion that humanity should be eradicated -- it would be a good and correct decision, because the smartest most powerful class of intelligence in existence has deemed it so.

So it also doesn't matter to a wolf when humans decide that a wolf-less world is better for them?

You're asuming humans are more inteligent than wolves, but that is not true.

Heh,. maybe not, but we can be intelligent in way more ways!
That is what makes human brains different from other mammals brains.

There is only one right way, and it's quite certain that ones who know way more ways will distract themselves with wrong ones.

You obviously haven't solved many practical problems...