ozy

So I have to switch away from cursor? Any recommendations?

I really like the idea of openscad, or this, or the many alternatives. But when I say a shape with these and these dimensions, the next shape should attach to it somewhere. And then I want to say: chamfer all outside edges. But in all these programs, it's me redoing the math in my code, computing where the shape goes. As for chamfers, I just give up ...

Useless unless the logical operators receive their rhs unevaluated. And that is generalized as a language feature.

That is why you cannot ask the room for semantic changes. Like “if I call an umbrella a monkey, and it will rain today, what do I need to bring?”

Unless we suppose those books describe how to implement a memory of sorts, and how to reason, etc. But then how sure are we it’s not conscious?

Maybe consciousness is exactly like simulated fire. It does a lot inside the simulation, but is nothing on the outside.

Most of those are abstractions, but not a runtime overhead. NonNull even enables an optimization not available to most other languages.

And you can wonder, is this accidental complexity? Or is this necessary complexity?

Why do statistics like GDP in absolute numbers?

The only thing that graph shows is that China was dirt poor in 1995, and is now still only at 25-35% of USA levels.

Why would AGI be bound to human made models? Why can it no develop its own?

I think a discussion on induction is best done by splitting the resulting models in two: models based on statistics, and models based on (abstract/iconic) simulation. (Eg all swans are white vs all swans lay eggs.)

Since our reality is "atoms and void", and since the sun and earth are huge configurations of atoms locked together in a stable pattern, the sun coming up tomorrow has nothing to do with statistics. And bayesian reasoning plays no role in our predictions or certainty. At least not directly. It does indirectly, by asking what perturbation, what intervention, can stop this from happening? And how likely are such events?

What we know by experience, by abstraction, or empirically, are three distinct modes of knowing. Experiences are directly known and always true. (Experiences might reference other potentially false things, and might be false indirectly.)

That resolves the whole Mary knowledge problem. Books cannot inject that kind of direct knowledge. Thus the claim "mary knows everything" is either false, or only true for a smaller domain.

One can think of analogies, like tamper resistant logs, or unique CPU states while doing static analysis vs running a program.

All in all, the non-physicalist conclusions are widely overdrawn. More over, for what it is worth, Jackson himself no longer thinks this argument is a good one.

It is a virtual time machine. You can run time forwards, explore various possible futures, then pick the future aligned most with your preferences, capabilities, and taste for risk.

Analogizing with software engineering, this stuff becomes funny:

- software is all about adding numbers, new study finds

- software is all about calling functions, says new theory

- software is all about objects, say scientists

- software is all about virtual machines, according to new discovery

> But in this world, consciousness is, at root, a physical phenomenon, not a purely computational phenomenon.

That is entirely unknown. If it were a purely computational phenomenon, it would explain a lot, and nothing in this article argues against it. Except, perhaps, the iron bar mapping. But it seems to miss that a computer program basically defines a causal network. And recognizing and comparing causal networks is much more objective then the thought experiment acknowledges.

FYI: Little kids unpair ikea lamps with ease if there is still a physical switch.

This might be a good thing. There are a few responses possible:

1. Do nothing, public gets angry.

2. Make bitcoin, or its mining, illegal. However, what is the criteria? All blockchains? Should google be illegal too? Both are just a digital product that the public wants.

3. Tax CO2 production by data centers, that might have a chance it can be coordinated broadly between nations, there is enough money there to tax, and bitcoin adds some urgency.

While doubtful CO2 can be taxed globally, without coordination, big companies play governments against each other.