3 Substances in 3 Environments

I'd say the keyword is "simulated".

I don't believe LLMs understand anything semantically.

LLMs have never once been shown to comprehend anything semantically. Nevermind that the very computational nature of LLMs excludes any possibility of semantic reasoning. It's abstractions and metaphors all the way down to the purely physical and chemical level...

[Laird]

I agree and have nothing to add except that it's very puzzling that LLMs are capable of making novel and insightful statements of meaning without understanding what they're saying.

I agree and have nothing to add except that it's very puzzling that LLMs are capable of making novel and insightful statements of meaning without understanding what they're saying.

Well someone else made the original insightful statement, then the AI companies stole it.

The AI is good at rewording stolen, possibly copyrighted information though.

I agree and have nothing to add except that it's very puzzling that LLMs are capable of making novel and insightful statements of meaning without understanding what they're saying.

It's not puzzling when you understand that LLMs are just algorithms placing and taking information from a database based on inputs, and then using that to generate a plausible set of words, with a hint of randomness to give the illusion that there's no algorithm happening.

[Laird]

Well someone else made the original insightful statement, then the AI companies stole it.

The AI is good at rewording stolen, possibly copyrighted information though.

Even given your general antipathy towards AI, this seems surprisingly dismissive.

I'm not sure whether you missed my point or simply chose to make a different one, but I think it's worth reiterating in stronger terms: it is pretty unfathomable to me that these technologies can interpret complex language and respond to it in very complex and intelligent ways exactly as though they understood it given that they literally don't understand any of it.

That you and Valmar don't find this very remarkable is also pretty unfathomable to me.

Even given your general antipathy towards AI, this seems surprisingly dismissive.

I'm not sure whether you missed my point or simply chose to make a different one, but I think it's worth reiterating in stronger terms: it is pretty unfathomable to me that these technologies can interpret complex language and respond to it in very complex and intelligent ways exactly as though they understood it given that they  literally don't understand any of it.

That you and Valmar don't find this very remarkable is also pretty unfathomable to me.

I recall learning a lot of the tricks in my Computational Linguistics class. Once you get a sense of how the magic trick works it just becomes less impressive?

Or rather I appreciate the effort that goes into the trick, while not believing the magic?

Even given your general antipathy towards AI, this seems surprisingly dismissive.

I'm not sure whether you missed my point or simply chose to make a different one, but I think it's worth reiterating in stronger terms: it is pretty unfathomable to me that these technologies can interpret complex language and respond to it in very complex and intelligent ways exactly as though they understood it given that they  literally don't understand any of it.

That you and Valmar don't find this very remarkable is also pretty unfathomable to me.

If you don't understand the basics of how LLMs are programmed, then it will appear unfathomable.

You need to think of LLMs as effectively a very fancy next-word predictor, because that is effectively what they boil down to, despite the apologism from those lost in the hype. Yes, the algorithms can be very fancy, but it's still nothing more than that ~ a fancy, dumb algorithm operating on inputs and going through a database.

Don't let the metaphors confuse you.

Hi Stephen,

Moreover, like the physicalist, you seem to see that to which mind, mentality, and experience are reduced or with which they are identified - information (objects and their flow) in your case - as deterministic: as captured in their "essence" by "algorithm and programs". It seems to follow then that you see mind and mentality, including phenomenal experience, themselves as deterministic: algorithmic and programmatic. You thus seem implicitly committed to a denial of free will.

Laird,

I see algorithms, logic gates and truth tables as information that has been structured by mind in special useful ways.  Mind, as an abstract term, represents exactly these creative activities where the environment responds to willful ideas.  Very far from a free will denier, I understand free will fairly well.  The best in depth arguments are at https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/

The Information Philosopher proposes a model of human freedom that is indeed a halfway house between chance and necessity, one that involves both, first indeterminism to generate free alternative possibilities, then adequate determinism to choose, to will one of those possibilities.

Without this freedom there can be no explanation for human creativity, which brings unpredictable new information into the universe, "something new under the sun."

I present a metric to measure mind in an informational environment.  Will, foresight, understanding and personal experience are actively changing the info environment.  Different than physical energy action in the informational environment is the changing of real-world probability.  Mind has evolved from direct perception of the affordances in our info space.  Space that includes probabilities wave forms into the past, present and future.  And can manifest change globally as modern communication systems prove.

Laird,

I see algorithms, logic gates and truth tables as information that has been structured by mind in special useful ways.  Mind, as an abstract term, represents exactly these creative activities where the environment responds to willful ideas.  Very far from a free will denier, I understand free will fairly well.  The best in depth arguments are at https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/


I present a metric to measure mind in an informational environment.  Will, foresight, understanding and personal experience are actively changing the info environment.  Different than physical energy action in the informational environment is the changing of real-world probability.  Mind has evolved from direct perception of the affordances in our info space.  Space that includes probabilities wave forms into the past, present and future.  And can manifest change globally as modern communication systems prove.

I don't believe the indeterminism/deteminism dichotomy is a good way to describe anything, since it's questionable even matter has that dichotomy.

More relevant to the topic of substances, are you saying information is mental? Is the structure "by the mind" a projection onto the external experiences (the "objective" 3rd person consensus) by the experiencers?

I don't believe the indeterminism/deteminism dichotomy is a good way to describe anything, since it's questionable even matter has that dichotomy.

More relevant to the topic of substances, are you saying information is mental? Is the structure "by the mind" a projection onto the external experiences (the "objective" 3rd person consensus) by the experiencers?

Loved the quote, thank you. 

The common definitions of mind and substance are full of connotations that cloud new evidence about how information processing works.  In recent decades the practical use of information science has changed our worldview.  When we reverse engineer how life works - the scope of biological information processing is amazing.  We did not understand 25 years ago.

The metaphysical idea that only genetic material could influence heredity was iconized as Weismann's barrier.  Today, it is well proved that bio processes use information across any philosophic barrier.  Mutations (changes) in coding do mostly occur randomly, but some changes are coded (epigenetics) and are communication for future adaptations.  Each year the workings of bioinformatics is revealing the power of natural information processing at a every level.

I would define mind simply as the ability to detect and manipulate real-world probability waves.  When a probability space has a configuration that is useful to an agent - its called an affordance.  People are material and energy transformers.  In an exact manner we transform information structures, such as words and plans.  It is instinct, will and intent that activates them.

That information is real by being probability waves and active through intentional enforcement is not currently accepted, even though all evidence points to our being able to measure and predict outcomes.  What I am saying is mind detects real-world probabilities - directly.  Mind is a process not a substance.  The substance is in the form and the meaning an information object holds.  A symbol is an affordance that may be seen with the eye.  But the meaning of the symbol and the many places it can relate, happen due to mental work in an information space, where the past and future can communicate its probabilistic contents.  The substance of history is real.  And our desires can take vague futures and make them ours.

It is apparent that at some point in time after the BB, probable events changed from being only results of physical activity. Biological activity reveals drastic changes in likely outcomes, outcomes that have self-interest.  What is probable becomes not the next collision -- but what are the attactors in informational space.  Information processing is natural and our local globe has always had new and creative information structures evolving a chain of living organisms.  These biological algorithms are measurable and just plain natural.  They are  free to find their way in physical space.  They are free to find their way in informational space.  And I hope that we are free to find our way in the highest heavens.