From Compression to Prediction
Compressing information can intriguingly lead to enhanced predictive capabilities. This general scheme is recognizable in many contexts ― organic and artificial. Life itself Life can be understood as a local defense against universal entropy (chaos or heightening of chaos). Within any bubble of life, there is a concentration of resources to this aim. At the Read the full article…
Believe in Your Self!
Unfortunately, many people are not inclined to deeply believe in their <Inner Strength>. Nevertheless, especially nowadays, global fate depends on it. This unbelief is not typical to a specific culture. Its ubiquity means that either: It’s a natural given, making people genetically predisposed to not believe in themselves. It’s a cultural thing in a general Read the full article…
The Path from Implicit to Explicit Knowledge
Implicit: It’s there, but we don’t readily know how, neither why it works. Explicit: We can readily follow each step. This is more or less the same move as from intractable to tractable or from competence to comprehension. But how? Emergence If something comes out, it must have been in ― one way or another. Read the full article…
When Enlightenment becomes Dark
Talking about Western Enlightenment, logically, things tend to become darker when pushing reason forward on a defunct view of the human being. You may already know I’m talking about the subconceptual level of mental processing. If you don’t, please make sure to first read some blogs about it. Smartness is not enough. Being able to Read the full article…
About Confabulation
Depending on how exact you want inferences to be, humans are born confabulators. Not surprisingly, we also see much confabulation in present-day generative pre-trained transformers (GPT). Confabulation is a look-alike but inexact information. Note that in the GPT field, this is nowadays called hallucination. Confabulation is inherent to mental ‘parallel distributed processing’ (PDP). Humans and Read the full article…
Parallel Distributed Processing
In the mental sphere, Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) is nature’s way to reach ever more complexity. It’s also the title of a phenomenal book (edited) by Rumelhart & McClelland, published in 1986 — my mind-opener a few years later. Much AURELIS-thinking started then. Subconceptual In PDP, the basic units of mental processing are not the Read the full article…
Balance vs. Synthesis
Where a balancing act can be proper, a synthesis can be powerful. In a synthesis, a deeper connection between elements is sought, which may lead to an unforeseen and original direction. A balance is an equilibrium that doesn’t readily invite originality. In many cases, that’s OK, of course. Finding a balance may defuse tensions, enabling Read the full article…
Bringing Compassion to the World through A.I.
This is the crucial idea behind the philanthropic project of Planetarianism as part of the AURELIS project. You can find a blog about Planetarianism here and a concrete overview presentation (ppsx for laptop) here. Concretely, it’s a set of projects aiming for this blog’s title. Compassion, basically, is no rosy moonshine. There are strong traditions Read the full article…
Science for Complexity
Especially in human-related sciences, holding on to a Platonean ideal is insufficient for grappling with present-day challenges. We need new science to manage complexity. A.I. can provide the necessary tools for this. Science of medicine and psychosomatics Until now, medical science has been based on a non-complex picture of the human being. This accords with Read the full article…
The Quest for Abstract Patterns
This is about creation. The creative process Some see three levels of creativity: interpolation, extrapolation, and the invention of something new/out of the box. This progress in levels goes from the domain of the known toward the domain of the not-yet-known. One can also see these levels as the possible results of an increasing discernment Read the full article…
From Intractable to Tractable = Intelligent
This is what intelligence can do: simplifying intractable problems (not easily controlled, managed, or solved) to tractable ones without much loss of relevant information. Problems may be social, mathematical, or other. Depending on the meaning of the considered terms, it may be seen as an exhaustive characterization of intelligence. However, this is not meant as Read the full article…
Global Human-A.I. Value Alignment
Human values align deeply across the globe, though they vary on the surface. Thus, striving for human-A.I. value alignment can create positive challenges for A.I. and opportunities for humanity. A.I. may make the world more pluralistic. With A.I. means, different peoples/cultures can strive for more self-efficacy, doing their thing independently and thereby floating away from Read the full article…
Is Compassionate A.I. (Still) Our Choice?
Seen from the future, the present era may be the most responsible for accomplishing the advent of Compassionate A.I. Compassion, basically, is the realm of complexity. It’s not about some commandments or a – simple or less simple – conceptual system of ethics. Therefore, instilling Compassion into a system is not a straightforward engineering endeavor Read the full article…
The Awakening (to Reality)
Especially the reality of oneself. This is largely unachievable with all too exclusively conceptual thinking. Reality is conceptual AND subconceptual, not just one or the other. An overly conceptual take leads to a toy world in perception and construction, of which present-day conceptual humanism is an unfortunate example with many dire consequences in medicine and Read the full article…
Is Gluten Sensitivity an Expectation Effect?
Many people avoid gluten in their diet because they see them as the cause for gastrointestinal and other symptoms and unwellness. Although this field receives a lot of media attention, there has been little science about mental causality up till now. Gluten (named after ‘glue’) is what makes dough elastic and bread chewy. It also Read the full article…
Human-Centered A.I.
Human-centered A.I. (HAI) emphasizes human strength, health, and well-being. To be durably so, it must be Compassionate, basically, ― properly taking into account human complexity; this is: the total person. The total person comprises the conceptual and subconceptual mind ― way beyond classical humanism and a lingering body-mind divide. From the inside out As neurocognitive Read the full article…
Consciousness is not a Thing
It is the concept with the features people like to associate with that term. Of course, this is the same as with many other terms/concepts, especially human-related ones — intelligence, feelings, motivations… Changing the question: “Will super-AI attain consciousness?” This question can be changed into a better one: “Will AI get characteristics that you want Read the full article…