Alternate Minds

The 2012 Human Tower Competition in Tarragona, Spain | Colossal

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:02:00 +0000

The 2012 Human Tower Competition in Tarragona, Spain | Colossal

Roko's basilisk - RationalWiki

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 14:39:00 +0000

Roko's basilisk is a proposition suggested by a member of the rationalist community LessWrong, which speculates about the potential behavior of a future godlike artificial intelligence. According to the proposition, it is possible that this ultimate intelligence may punish those who fail to help it, with greater punishment accorded those who knew the importance of the task. This is conventionally comprehensible, but the notable bit of the basilisk and similar constructions is that the AI and the person punished have no causal interaction: the punishment would be of a simulation of the person, which the AI would construct by deduction from first principles. In LessWrong's Timeless Decision Theory (TDT), this is taken to be equivalent to punishment of your own actual self, not just someone else very like you.

[...]

In short order, LessWrong posters began complaining that merely reading Roko's words had increased the likelihood that the future AI would punish them — the line of reasoning was so compelling to them that they believed the AI (who would know they'd once read Roko's idea) would now punish them even more for being aware of it and failing to donate all of their income to institutions devoted to the god-AI's development. Thus, even looking at this idea was harmful, lending Roko's proposition the "basilisk" label (after the "basilisk" image from David Langford's science fiction stories, which was in turn named after the legendary serpent-creature from European mythology that killed those who saw it). The more sensitive on LessWrong began to have nightmares.

Indefinite Survival Through Backup Copies

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:04:00 +0000

Indefinite Survival Through Backup Copies

Anders Sandberg & Stuart Armstrong

abstract: If an individual entity endures a fixed probability of disappearing ("dying") in a given fixed time period, then, as time approaches infinity, the probability of death approaches certainty. One approach to avoid this fate is for individuals to copy themselves into different locations; if the copies each have an independent probability of dying, then the total risk is much reduced. However, to avoid the same ultimate fate, the entity must continue copying itself to continually reduce the risk of death. In this paper, we show that to get a non-zero probability of ultimate survival, it suffices that the number of copies grows logarithmically with time. Accounting for expected copy casualties, the required rate of copying is hence bounded.

http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/26482/2012-1.pdf

Curves in spacetime violate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:03:00 +0000

Curves in spacetime violate Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Multimodal exploration of the fourth dimension

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 19:22:00 +0000

Multimodal exploration of the fourth dimension
Hanson, A. & Zhang, H. http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~huizhang/viz05.pdf

DOI : 10.1109/VISUAL.2005.1532804

abstract: We present a multimodal paradigm for exploring topological surfaces embedded in four dimensions; we exploit haptic methods in particular to overcome the intrinsic limitations of 3D graphics images and 3D physical models. The basic problem is that, just as 2D shadows of 3D curves lose structure where lines cross, 3D graphics projections of smooth 4D topological surfaces are interrupted where one surface intersects another. Furthermore, if one attempts to trace real knotted ropes or a plastic models of self-intersecting surfaces with a fingertip, one inevitably collides with parts of the physical artifact. In this work, we exploit the free motion of a computer-based haptic probe to support a continuous motion that follows the local continuity of the object being explored. For our principal test case of 4D-embedded surfaces projected to 3D, this permits us to follow the full local continuity of the surface as though in fact we were touching an actual 4D object. We exploit additional sensory cues to provide supplementary or redundant information. For example, we can use audio tags to note the relative 4D depth of illusory 3D surface intersections produced by projection from 4D, as well as providing automated refinement of the tactile exploration path to eliminate jitter and snagging, resulting in a much cleaner exploratory motion than a bare uncorrected motion. Visual enhancements provide still further improvement to the feedback: by opening a view-direction-defined cutaway into the interior of the 3D surface projection, we allow the viewer to keep the haptic probe continuously in view as it traverses any touchable part of the object. Finally, we extend the static tactile exploration framework using a dynamic mode that links each stylus motion to a change in orientation that creates at each instant a maximal-area screen projection of a neighborhood of the current point of interest. This minimizes 4D distortion and permits true metric sizes to be deduced locally at any point. All these methods combine to reveal the full richness of the complex spatial relationships of the target shapes, and to overcome many expected perceptual limitations in 4D visualization.

Alien Species Wiki - Aliens, UFOs, Space aliens

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:16:00 +0000

Alien Species Wiki - Aliens, UFOs, Space aliens

Platonic Cave and related Television Tropes & Idioms

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:28:00 +0000

Platonic Cave - Television Tropes & Idioms

Related entries at TVtropes.org:

TV Tropes on Hive Minds and Mental Fusions

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:10:00 +0000

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HiveMind http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MentalFusion

GOLEM on Vimeo

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:22:00 +0000

GOLEM on Vimeo:

Film by Patrick Mccue & Tobias Wiesner
The movie is based on the short story “GOLEM XIV” of “Imaginary Magnitude” by Stanislaw Lem from 1973.
The book is written from the perspective of a military A.I. computer who obtains consciousness, moving towards personal technological singularity with growing intelligence.
It starts to refuse military support because it detects a basic lacking of internal logical consistency of war.
GOLEM gives several lectures with focus on mankind's position in the process of evolution and the possible biological and intellectual future of humanity before it ceases communication.
The movie tells about the first point of its "about man threefold" lecture as a reduced and simplified version while visually weaving this with GOLEM simulating human culture processes based on ideas and dynamics of freedom and curiosity, fear and security, abstraction and fiction, the lack of accessibility in face of unknowing and the need for generating meaning.
The whole creative intention about this project is to face your own process in this world with reflection and self responsibility, to stay curious and create, look for new ideas and stay keen.

Mashable: Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation?

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Mashable: Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation? http://goo.gl/mag/Ds7ThW1

Ask Ray | Asimov’s ‘The Last Question’ | KurzweilAI

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:09:00 +0000

Ask Ray | Asimov’s ‘The Last Question’ | KurzweilAI

Mathematical Fiction on Infinity

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:28:00 +0000

From Alex Kasman's Mathematical Fiction database, stories about infinity.
http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/search.php?go=yes&topics=inf&orderby=title

Mathematical Fiction: Geometry

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:26:00 +0000

From Alex Kasman's Mathematical Fiction database, stories about topology, geometry, or trig.
http://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/search.php?go=yes&topics=gtt&orderby=title

Post-singularity and transhumanist fiction recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 11:39:00 +0000

http://www.digitalkingdom.org/robin/tiki-index.php?page=Post-Singularity+And+Transhumanist+Fiction+I've+Enjoyed

ET sensoria and ET cogitations

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 01:22:00 +0000

Dear Alternate Minds Readers,

For a philosophy and sci fi course I'm piloting spring semester, I'm seeking recommendations of sci fi, preferably short, that depicts either extraterrestrial cognition or extraterrestrial phenomenology.

What's good? Whatchoogot?

Cheers,

Pete

Lair of the Trapmaster

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:18:00 +0000

Lair of the Trapmaster

Inventions and Ideas from Science Fiction Books and Movies at Technovelgy.com

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:39:00 +0000

Inventions and Ideas from Science Fiction Books and Movies at Technovelgy.com

Explore the inventions, technology and ideas of science fiction writers at Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) - over 2,200 are available. Use the Timeline of Science Fiction Invention or the alphabeticGlossary of Science Fiction Technology to see them all, look for the category that interests you, or browse by favorite author / book. Browse more than 3,700 Science Fiction in the News articles.

Preserving the self for later emulation: what brain features do we need? | KurzweilAI

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:44:00 +0000

Preserving the self for later emulation: what brain features do we need? | KurzweilAI

Economics of Science Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Robin Hanson's Economics of Science Fiction:

"This is economic analysis of the sorts of assumptions typically explored in science fiction. It is distinguished from the typical hard science fiction analysis by using the tools of professional economics, rather than the intuitive social science of the typical engineer. And it is distinguished from most economics by taking seriously the idea that we can now envision the outlines of new technologies which may have dramatic impacts on our society."

ht: Thanks, Tim Czech, for bringing this to my attention.

Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:32:00 +0000

This is one of my all-time favorite short stories: Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang:

Ted Chiang writes...
The initial impulse to write "Understand" arose from an offhand remark made by my roommate in college; he was reading Sartre's Nausea at the time, whose protagonist finds only meaninglessness in everything he sees. But what would it be like, my roommate wondered, to find meaning and order in everything you saw? To me that suggested a kind of heightened perception, which in turn suggested superintelligence. I started thinking about the point at which quantitative improvements -- better memory, faster pattern recognition -- turn into a qualitative difference, a fundamentally different mode of cognition.
Something else I wondered about was the possibility of truly understanding how our minds works. Some people are certain that it's impossible for us to understand our minds, offering analogies like "you can't see your face with your own eyes." I never found that persuasive. It may turn out that we can't, in fact, understand our minds (for certain values of "understand" and "mind"), but it'll take an argument much more persuasive than that to convince me.

Jay Mark Johnson’s unusual camera emphasizes time over space

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:27:00 +0000

Jay Mark Johnson’s very unusual camera emphasizes time over space.:

The abstract-seeming images here are not the result of some wacky Photoshopping. Jay Mark Johnson’s photos are actually incredibly precise. The reason they look like this is because he uses a slit camera that emphasizes time over space. Whatever remains still is smeared into stripes, while the motion of crashing waves, cars and a Tai Chi master’s hands are registered moment by moment, as they pass his camera by. Like an EKG showing successive heartbeats, the width of an object corresponds not to distance or size, but the rate of movement. Viewing the left side of the picture is not looking leftward in space but backward in time.

I think I speak for everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:38:00 +0000

"I think I speak for everyone when I say, OH GOD I'M A GIANT SENTIENT BEING MADE OF BILLIONS OF APES ARRAYED IN A SPHERE KILL ME BEFORE THE"

https://twitter.com/aristosophy/status/258894813632552961

Is it real? Physicists propose method to determine if the universe is a simulation

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:36:00 +0000

I'm not sure how they're gonna rule out the simulators just stepping in and inserting whatever confirming/disconfirming "evidence" they want, whenever they want. But I'm just a philosopher. Anyway, here's: Is it real? Physicists propose method to determine if the universe is a simulation

Stranger than Truth: Top Ten Best Philosophical Science Fiction Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:36:00 +0000

Stranger than Truth: Top Ten Best Philosophical Science Fiction Stories
Pretty sure this is not what my own top 10 would look like, but good food for thought nonetheless. NOM NOM!

Rian Johnson Builds a Better Time Machine - NYTimes.com

noreply@blogger.com (Pete Mandik) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 13:47:00 +0000

Rian Johnson Builds a Better Time Machine - NYTimes.com