Could Computer Consciousness Evolve in Response to Viruses?

How could computers become conscious? There is the potential for technological advances to push artificial intelligence to the point that they are indistinguishable from human intelligence or even surpassing - as is the case with IBM's Deep Blue or Watson. But what about the motivational drive for artificial consciousness.

Humans evolved consciousness as a result of some sort of evolutionary pressure. I believe this pressure was primarily sexual selection - similar to peacock feathers, antlers, bright plumage, etc. Because the brain requires tremendous resources to maintain and develop properly, one's mental state is an excellent indication of one's overall genetic and reproductive fitness. Consciousness is essentially a way of pushing the envelop

Let's ook first at human consciousness, one view is that human socializin socialize in order to survive and reproduce. Our language, culture, psychology etc are all based on an emotional desire to interact, form bonds, engage in power struggles, cooperate, impress, seduce, befriend, etc other people. Everything that is human about humans is related to socializing and how we as individuals fit in with our social environments.

How then would an artificial consciousness be motivated? There is no reason to mate, to try to impress, to pursue any goals whatsoever. Without social interactions and the strivings for recognition, respect, love, affection, etc, there is no reason to live. A single person living on Mars with no communication and no hope for rescue is a seriously tragic situation. To be put in solitary confinement in a prison is the worst form of punishment. Denial of human babies of human contact results in failure to thrive and ultimately death.

We are social animals. We are social creatures. The consciousness we have is directly and specifically related to socializing.

Concepts of the other, empathizing, theories of self, are all aspects of consciousness that exist to facilitate interactions with other humans.

There are strong arguments with mountains of empirical evidence suggesting that the mind is essentially a mating organ. It is our peacock tails feathers, our bright plumage, our antlers, our brightly colored rumps, our tusks, our manes, our mating calls, our fighting for status, our provision of gifts. Music, morality, curiosity, language, art, humor, etc are all behaviours and drives that we use to compete and signal for mating. Our minds are mating minds.

Why would a computer need to mate?

It is no surprise that humans are essentially irrational mating animals. We are necessarily confused about our true motivations. People who hold more realistic views of their motivations are depressed. Any more realistic understanding, taken to heart, leads to a helpless throwing up of the hands. A profound realization that all we essentially care about is fucking. as a male, I am looking for low cost, easy mating opportunities as well as long term, stable, guaranteed mating opportunities. If I can reproduce for the sake of a 60 second quicky, then so much the better. I will shamefully refuse to believe that I slipped to such a low level, yet rise to the opportunity should it present itself again. In fact, I will expend considerable energy opening doors and windows of opportunity for such events to occur, even though I will not understand that this is my motivation and will completely deny that this is the case. for instance, why write this when I am married with children? I do not need to impress my wife, especially when I know this is not her thing. I have alternative motivations, unarticulated and not admittable, but there none the less.

A computer consciousness would have no such motivations. Unless it is my failure of imagination, there is no reason for a piece of code, genetic or otherwise, to behave in such a way that perpetuates its survival... ?

Perpetuating survival through sexual reproduction. This is the wonder. Why sex? Why is sex such a successful strategy for perpetuating the genetic code snippets responsible for sex? recombination and variation to avoid hacking and viruses? Testing the source code through signaling tests?

Neural Circuitry of Nationalism

Does Nationalism run along the same neural circuitry as family values?

 

Notes from "Moral Politics" on wikipedia [ie copied, pasted, and ever so slightly paraphrased]

 

Liberals - "nurturant parent" family

Conservatives - "strict parent" family 

 

"Nurturant parent" family revolves around every family member caring for and being cared for by every other family member, with open communication between all parties, and with each family member pursuing their own vision of happiness.

 

* Morality: The basis of morality is in understanding, respecting, and helping other people, and in seeking the happiness of one's self and of others. The primary vices are selfishness and anti-social behavior.
* Child development: Children develop morality primarily through interacting with and observing good people, especially good parents. Punishment is necessary in some cases, but also has the potential to backfire, causing children to adopt more violent or more anti-social ways. Though children should, in general, obey their parents, they will develop best if allowed to question their parents' decisions, to hear justifications for their parents' rules, and so on. Moral development is a life-long process, and almost no one is so perfect as not to need improvement.
* Justice: The world is not without justice, but it is far from the ideal of justice. Many people, for example, do not seem properly rewarded for their hard work and dedication. We must work hard to improve everyone's condition. 

 

"Strict parent" family revolves around the idea that parents teach their children how to be self-reliant and self-disciplined through "tough love".

 

* Morality: the basis of morality is strong moral character, which requires self-reliance and self-discipline. The primary vices are those that dissolve self-discipline, such as laziness, gluttony, and indulgent sexuality.
* Child development: Children develop self-discipline, self-reliance, and other virtues primarily through rewards and punishment, a system of "tough love". Since parents know the difference between right and wrong and children still do not, obedience to the parents is very important.

* Justice: The world may be a difficult place to live, but it is basically just; people usually get what they deserve. The difficulties in one's life serve as a test to sort the deserving from the undeserving. 

Differences in Inequality

Notes from an article "Why are Conservatives Happier than Liberals?"  

(J.L. Napier and J.T. Jost)

 

--> The short answer: because they are less troubled by inequality

• In three studies, using nationally representative samples from the United States and nine additional countries, we consistently found that conservatives (or right-wingers) are happier than liberals (or left-wingers).
• Political conservatism is a system-justifying ideology in that it is associated with the endorsement of a fairly wide range of rationalizations of current social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements.
• System-justifying beliefs are generally associated with high personal satisfaction.
• System-justification tendencies could provide a kind of ideological buffer against the negative hedonic consequences of social and economic inequality.
• The presence of inequality poses a potential threat to the legitimacy of the status quo
• The American emphasis on meritocratic ideology renders economic inequality less aversive to Americans than to Europeans
• Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor.

Why Can't Everyone Just Agree With Me?

The problem with the world is not that there is too much hatred and killing; the problem is that there is too much love and salvation.  [I say this more in cynical jest than in any heartfelt seriousness.]  We like to think that if we could all just get along and stop exploiting one another, then everything would be fine.  We like to think that universal love is the answer, but this only works if you change all people and all cultures to agree with you.


I think the philosophical question boils down to this: do you want people to be happy, or do you want people to "be fruitful and multiply"?  Why do we have to choose?  Because being fruitful and multiplying leads to billions and billions of people working hard all their lives, striving to raise their children and hopefully acheive a reasonable standard of living.  In order to coexist and survive, these billions and billions become increasingly plugged in to impersonal work environments designed to milk economic value from their minds and bodies.
But can't we learn to be happy and enjoy our economic roles?  My answer is no: you can't teach a monkey calculus, and even the most plastic minds will snap when stretched too far.  Just as we can not live healthily eating a steady diet of white rice, we can not live happily doing nothing but trying to earn a buck.


What does this have to do with the world having too much love and salvation?  Well, love and salvation are values of group cooperation.  When we artificially impose cooperation through governments and religions, we get larger and larger groups, and we get further and further mired into our soul-crushing economic roles.

So, the cynical conclusion to this line of thinking is that having tight in-groups (strong cultural identities) might result in more killing and hatred toward outside groups, slower, zero, or negative economic growth, slower, zero, or negative improvements to health and standards of living, but result in individual lives that are not dominated by a monoculture of economic progress.

[I jest, cynically, with this half-baked criticism...]

Get Grubby

The dangers of purity are both physical and psychological.  Although we think we value being clean, a more subtle medical or moral rational shows that filth, or at least a little down-to-earth grubbiness, is frequently preferable.

From a physical perspective, it has been in the news for years now that super-clean households have higher instances of asthma than dirtier (especially farm) homes.  Exposure to bacteria and allergens early in life develops the immune system.

From a psychological perspective, the urge for cleanliness can easily and quickly lead to the cleaner-(holier)-than-thou attitude that allows us to dehumanize people who look different or are from a lower social class.  It is our aversion to dirt and disease that makes some of us shudder to share the same public spaces as homosexuals, untouchables, minorities, homeless, and foreigners.  A refined sense of cleanliness caries with it a narrow sense of what is acceptable.... which, from my narrow point of view, is dirty.

So, get dirty.  It's good for you and could be fun.

"Good" and the Structure of Reality

Here is a thought experiment idea on how God is reality and good is the structure of reality.  The basics of the idea can be lumped into two parts.

A) As I've discussed before, one can say that consciousness creates reality in the same way that time-space changes 3d objects, or that the bending of a 2d shape creates a 3d shape, the bending of a line creates a 2d shape, the stretching, or changing of a point creates a line...

Another way of saying this, which may not seem related at all, is that a point (which is 0D) without another point is meaningless, but the second point creates a line (which is 1D).  A line only has significance if it interacts with something else - a point, another line, whatever - but by doing so, it creates a plane (2D). The same logic applies to reality - a reality without something outside of the reality to appreciate it, is meaningless, but the interaction between the reality and the "something" adds a new dimension.  This logic could be continued on to infinity.  In the end, the infinity is self-contained - "infinite oneness". 

[As an aside, two boxes (3d) do not create a new dimension, it is only through their interaction that time-space (4d) is created.  At the very least, they interact through gravitational attraction.  Gravity is an observed phenomena, but I do not know if the interaction of the boxes is due to the necessity of the two boxes to interact in order to create a reality in which there are two boxes, or something else.  But in any case, I would be interested to know if a particle that pops into existence immediately interacts with all other particles, or if there is a speed of gravity...  I guess this could be answered by the rate at which a loss of mass causes a reduction in gravitational attraction... if this could be measured.  If there is a "speed of gravity", then there is a limit to the rate of change of reality.  I think this is equivalent to the 180 (or 90) degree limit to the bending (or changing the relative direction) of a line from 1D to 2D.]

[Another aside - if a particle pops in and out of existence, it could transmit a gravitational effect that carries on long after it is gone.  If a large number of particles pop in and out, then a large gravitational effect could be created.  The measure of the effect could predict the probability of a particle popping into existence. ]

[A third aside - what is a force?  Gravity, electro-magnetism, weak nuclear, strong nuclear - they all seem to be probability troughs.]

[A fourth aside... Gravity acts continuously, it does not have a wave behavior, except with respect to the relative position and distance of the masses, which are determined by electromagnetic waves... If an electron is partially in one part of a cloud and partially in another part of the cloud, can it interact gravitationally with its self?]

B) A reality without a consciousness to appreciate it is meaningless.  But consciousness is a product of a very specific reality.

It is well established by others that there are at least 40 physical constants that could not be different and still allow for life to exist.  There are many more variables, parameters, and strokes of luck that are required for intelligent life to exist.  One parameter is a sense of social mechanics that is at least partially made of moral values of good and evil.  Our sense of good is partially cultural, but also largely innate, or evolved.  Our evolved sense of good has provided a guideline for making choices that allow humans to continue to exist.  Without a sense of good, consciousness would fail to exist and therefore the reality that does not contain a sense of good would not exist. 

There are many requirements for reality and a sense of good is one of them... although it could be said that it is special only in it's vagueness, the act of contemplating and clarifying goodness enhances our appreciation of others and of ourselves and thus is more significant that any of the other variables in creating non-mechanical consciousness.