artiphys

Agnostic vs Atheist

2008-05-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

aah, it's so bittersweet when someone takes the words right out of your mouth: link

"Here is my position - very briefly. It is important to distinguish between propositions that are false and those that are outside the arena of science. Those ideas that cannot be tested, even in theory, are simply not science, and they are unknowable (I am talking about factual claims, not value judgments).

Unknowable propositions are worse than wrong - they are unnecessary. As I said - deism is unnecessary. That doesn’t mean there is no god - it means that the notion of a god (depending upon how it is conceived, but the basic idea of a being outside the confines of our physical universe and its laws) is simply unknowable. It is simply wrong to say that we can know god does not exist. The only logically consistent position is agnosticism. But you can combine that with the notion that such unfalsifiable claims are unnecessary. If someone chooses to have faith in such a thing, like the FSM, I really don’t care - as long as they keep it pure faith and do not make any logical or empirical claims - that’s cheating.

Regarding the term agnostic - I would rather have the opportunity to explain to people why I am agnostic than to create the other misconception (which is absolutely used as often as possible by believers) that atheists have faith in the non-existence of god. You’re burned either way, and you will have to explain yourself, so don’t shy away from philosophical purism."

Interestingly, this is the same guy who made the comment about the ghost in the machine being dead. Dualism and deism are two different things. However, yet another comment from the original thread interprets Brooks' take on duality in a way that resonates with me:

"...it seems to me that Brooks is advocating higher states of consciousness emerging as epiphenomena, rather than a dual quality of the mind, as implied by your “ghost in the machine” remark."

To me, this is the real mystery. I wholly accept the material nature of existence, and yet I still find it magical. You can have both -- complete materialism (even determinism! more on that one day) -- and yet there is still a fantastic, infinitely rich mystery to the whole thing. It's like the Mandelbrot set -- infinitely complex, yet described by a simple formula. It seems to be an intuition that comes most easily to those who have spent some time thinking about information and computation (ie, computer science and information theory). Perhaps it's just another way of saying things that have been said before, but in a somewhat more scientifically palatable vocabulary.

Something like that.

responses to Brook's Neural Buddhism

2008-05-16T00:03:00.001-07:00

this is an interesting blog thread: link

his summary:

"...I see no merger of neuroscience and mysticism. Quite the opposite. The ghost in the machine is long dead and only the machine remains."

The comments are particularly revealing. They repeatedly knock Brooks for supposedly giving succor to dualism. I didn't read his article that way, though in retrospect he was careful to stay on the fence. The 'new atheists' are quite virulent in their disdain for this stance, however. Here's a typical example:

"...So the rogues tell us that you have to be an agnostic if you want to be intellectually honest. Well that’s crap and you know it, rogues. You do live your life as if there were no gods, and for all intents and purposes, IMO, you are atheists. The problem with telling other people you are an agnostic, is that it would in their minds create the illusion that you are undecided - like it’s a 50/50 decision."

So I guess he's saying if I self-identify as Agnostic, I'm betraying the true cause of Atheism. Now that's rich. I'm reminded of the brilliant (as always) South Park episode, where Richard Dawkins wins the war against religion, and 500 years from now the United Atheist Alliance is locked in a battle to the death with the Allied Atheist Allegiance.

Point being, people will always be people. Why can't we all just get along?

What I Believe

2008-05-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

(excerpt of comment thread from an earlier post)

Vered said:

"So the thought is that there IS a "higher existence", but religions are just sets of cultural rules and customs that have nothing to do with that higher power?

If so, do you believe that?"

and I answered:

I believe that there are aspects of our existence that transcend what we would naively expect from a perfectly materialistic world. Logically, I don't know how that can be, so the question interests me.

I also believe that all major religions were obviously created by mankind, and are flawed, and to at least some degree cause division and hatred, and someday we will need to move beyond them (in their present forms).

I believe that the 'secular atheist agenda', such as it is, often tries to fight or ignore the fact that people long for meaning in their lives, and treats that longing as a failing. I worry that because of that, people feel forced to choose from a false dichotomy: 'science', with its apparent disregard for the transcendent aspects of existence, or 'religion', which acknowledges those feelings but ties them up with various myths, traditions, and dogma.

I think there's room for something else.

- Artiphys

article on science and religion

2008-05-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

I found this to be fascinating:

The Neural Buddhists.

excerpt:

"In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It’s going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism."

back to (virtual) reality

2008-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

Got a chance to talk with Ben Goertzel (http://www.goertzel.org/blog/blog.htm). He's got some fresh ideas about integrating virtual agents into worlds like Second Life. The problem he's running up against is what I would call the "hand of God" paradox.

If you create a simulated, Matrix-like world, and you want it to be internally consistent, can you interact with that world (as opposed to just observe it), and not screw it up in some subtle way?

Descartes wrestled with this problem long ago; Wikipedia claims it's known as "the problem of interactionism". Well, we have a concrete example of that problem right in front of us, in the form of a software conundrum.

In a perfectly simulated world, our simulated entities would act according to their own internally perfect physical properties. Simulated energy would be used to contract simulated muscles or turn simulated motors, which in turn would run simulated limbs, wheels, and so on. But what controls the actions of these agents, simulated vehicles, humans, etc? In today's video game worlds (including social worlds like Second Life, which use essentially the same sort of technology as WoW or Grand Theft Auto), a user manipulates an input device (mouse, keyboard, joystick), giving commands to his/her character, such as run, jump, shoot, pick things up, etc. Presently, these commands are typically translated into animations, so the character will run through a predetermined sequence of moves that relate to the command requested. There are some clever tricks to segue between animations, but basically it's like each command starts a flipbook movie of what the character should do.

But this throws off the whole idea of a consistent, simulated virtual world. These pre-determined motions don't pay any mind to things like gravity, inertia, or the fact that solid bodies don't move through each other. If you watch closely, most video games occasionally give out on the illusion of reality in subtle ways, such as trolls and warriors walking through each other like ghosts in World of Warcraft. Other games, especially FPS (First-Person Shooters), typically control what you can do so that you don't have the freedom to perform actions that would tear the fabric of the illusion.

But all this becomes a big problem if you want to create realistic, artificial beings that will live in this world and act consistently with each other, as well as interact meaningfully with the godlike avatars that we control from outside. The paradigm has to shift significantly, in ways that ripple through the architectural choices that are made when you put together a software engine that can run this sort of simulation.

An environment like this should be designed more like the kind of simulations that are used in serious robotics work, such as the Gazebo component of Player/Stage (ok, Microsoft has something like that as well). These simulators don't let you just go ahead and do whatever an animator can think of. If you want to walk across a room, well you better have some control software that is capable of keeping you from falling down. If you want to pick up an object, you need grippers, with proper friction coefficients at their 'fingertips'; you need to control them in such a way that they grasp the object, pick it up with a force greater than gravity, and manipulate it in the way that you envision. And, your simulator needs to be capable of faithfully and efficiently simulating all this interaction without running into the common problems of stability and consistency you see with these sorts of algorithms.

At the top level, where a human user might be manipulating a joystick, you still want things to be relatively easy. But what's going on under the hood is now at least an order of magnitude more complex than in today's video game engines. Commands to move your avatar, instead of just branching into some cool-looking animated move, have to control your avatar as if it were a robot in the virtual landscape. There are things we can do to cheat a bit, such as having virtual balancing forces, but the basic paradigm has to be that the physics -- the rules underlying the virtual Universe -- are inviolate.

This is a whole new way of thinking about (virtual) reality.

an amazing quote

2008-05-04T01:23:00.000-07:00

"Hopefully, the peoples of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, who are about to inherit the earth as we pass away, will treat us better than our ancestors treated them in the five centuries that Western Man ruled the world.

Otherwise, we all go out with a bang. "

-- Pat Buchanan

I do not in any way endorse his politics or ideology, but I have to admit to a grudging admiration for his intellect and (lately at least) his considerable courage in saying things most of us would prefer left unsaid.

meta-robotics

2008-05-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

a new clip from Anybots, with funny comments from another blogger:

http://www.botjunkie.com/2008/05/01/robot-slaves-slaves-monty-gets-a-roomba/

something different

2008-04-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

this is my brother's video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3d4v6fAukrw

I really like it.

religion as lifestyle

2008-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Maybe the reason I'm so bummed about getting older is because our culture is so disposable. You get the feeling sometimes that everything that matters to you has now been declared irrelevant, because the march of trendy fashions has moved on and you left the parade.

I think one of the strongest things that attracts people to religion is the idea of ancient traditions that buck the trend of constant change. The idea that you are thinking thoughts similar (if not identical) to those of your great-great-great-grandfather, sitting in the same pew, hearing the same songs and sentiments -- it's very comforting. Sharing that feeling with a whole community, bigger than your immediate family (who you are of course perpetually annoyed and disappointed with) -- this satisfies a strong craving that seems deeply wired into our subconscious.

When we're younger, there's a similar feeling but it's focused on newness, on defining our generation. New music, new styles, new modes of thought -- we share them with each other, but our parents are shut out. I think that's fine, but it shouldn't mean the other pull -- for continuity, tradition, sense of connection with other generations past and present -- should go by the wayside.

Maybe this is something the "atheist jihad" types don't really understand. Most people feel compelled to practice their faith even when elements of it are obviously intellecutally difficult to defend. Science itself has a long and venerable tradition, and thinking about it, most of my friends who would be categorized as hard-core secularists do in fact have a connection to a tradition -- the tradition of intellecutal pursuit, usually in an academic setting. They are comforted to walk the paths of Harvard, Oxford or Princeton, thinking of the great tradition of intellectual achievement that has gone on there before their time. And of course the celebration of rational discourse and scientific method goes back farther than modern history, to the ancient Greeks, and the 'classical tradition' that was discovered and reanimated in the renaissance. (or something like that, I'm no historian...)

I think this is why the strong-arm approach of the likes of Dennet, Dawkins, Hitchens, and Sam Harris sounds so tone-deaf to me. They argue that even moderate religion is an 'enabler' of fundamentalist thought, because the culture of tolerance keeps moderates from criticizing their less moderate peers. There is some truth in this, but it's not something "wrong with religion", it's a simple moral failing of those particular people.

What *is* 'wrong with religion' (at least some religion) in my mind is that the desire for community and tradition is bound up with ideology and ancient, rationally unsupportable ideas that no longer serve their original purpose. Examples are easy to come by -- sexist and racist attitudes; irrational, unscientific dogma; and an unwholesome attitude of "our people are special, and everyone else is not blessed by our God".

Is it possible to save some of these traditions while jettisoning the parts that don't make sense, and actually cause strife in the world? I'm not sure. Seems like it would be a good thing.

Another approach might be to develop new traditions, that have some familiarity with the old, but are based on ideas that are in sync with what we now know about the world, and with the idea of a global civilization that needs to be at peace, even if it's not a single, uniform one-size-fits-all culture. For that to happen, there will need to be some common agreement on certain moral codes -- it can't be complete moral relativism. That's the failing of extreme liberal secular humanism -- the political correctness of never criticizing anyone's beliefs or values. Some traditions and values can stay, but some just have to go, as painful as that may be to those who wish to hold on to them.

It might seem naive to think this could happen, and I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. However I've noticed that people can often change their allegiance to a new set of traditions and values, *if* they have a compelling reason to do so (such as being in love with someone where adoption of a new tradition is necessary to live in harmony with the extended family).

I once met a lady on a plane who was "shopping for a new religion" (her words, not mine). I think she was Lutheran and her husband was Catholic (or something like that), and they were trying out various churches in their new neighborhood -- Methodist, Presbyterian etc. (by new religion she really meant 'new sect of Christianity'). What struck me was how easily she contemplated the change -- as if it were like choosing a school for her kids, or a new place to shop. I was amused to think of all the saints and martyrs turning in their graves over her easy ability to be blissfully unconcerned about the various doctrinal differences that must have been so deeply divisive way back when, causing schisms, inquisitions, murder and mayhem. But then I thought well, she's not a theologian -- it just doesn't matter to her precisely what her Church believes, because she's not interested in doctrine. For her, it was a social choice -- who her friends would be, who she would be associating with. It occured to me that most people probably treat religion that way -- not as a strict dogma, but as a lifestyle choice.

I actually think that's a good thing.

another blogger

2008-04-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

talking about digitized physics:

http://alexlamb.livejournal.com/4562.html

the tooth fairy cometh

2008-04-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

(warning: this post may be harmful to your sense of well-being)

The young --

They preen and prance about in their bright new(bile) bodies, blissfully unaware. They strut their stuff with pride, as if youth were some sort of glorious personal achievement, attained through hard work and sacrifice. Right. To them, 20 or 30 years from now is like the Civil War -- an eternity away. Future, past, who cares? It's not now. Now is everything. Past is prologue; future postscript.

Another tooth is bothering me. This one is my lower right molar, unopposed since I lost the top one years ago. It's apparently super-erupted, ie growing out of its socket because nothing is pushing it down. Like a dead relative rising from the grave to give us one more year of grief at Xmas. (We really should have paid for the mausoleum.)

My teeth are dead, mostly. Root-canaled and/or crowned, thanks to modern dentistry. Embalmed, dead teeth, buried deep in my gums; their fake heads sticking out, to fool the neighbors into thinking the family is still alive and well. I guess I should be thankful; years ago, my genetic and nutritional deficiencies would have simply resulted in another toothless old crocker spitting chewing tobacco and eating mush for dinner. Thank god for cosmetic technology. I may not have heaving balloon breasts like Pamela Anderson, but at least I have my (fake, dead) teeth.

I don't know why this particular aspect of aging bothers me so much. It started with some simple phobias about complications (my usual hypochondria); but it's progressed to something much deeper. I'm not particularly afraid of the dental appointment per se; once I've resigned myself to the inevitability of the procedures (it's always plural), I get a grim satisfaction out of seeing it through. It's that first rush of fear, shame, and loathing I feel when I first become aware of a new pain in my mouth, and the realization that another chink in my armor against old age and death has been pierced. I suspect it's a bit like what a Space Shuttle astronaut feels when he sees a chunk of heat shield fly off into outer space. OK, that's probably worse; but those guys & gals are bred and chosen for bravery, so I'm comfortable equating their much more realistic fear with my neurotic one.

What kind of god would invent dental problems and old age? Not a nice one, surely. A bitter, evil, narrow-minded God; a petty and vengeful God. An asshole, basically. I'm supposed to bow down to this sort of indignity, as if it's my lot in life? Puhleez.

Today I was at a college campus, and I saw someone handing out fliers to vote for a student election. Out of curiosity, I approached the flier person. While reflexively holding out a pamphlet, he casually looked me over and said, "You're probably too old to vote." I mentioned that I was being carded at bars less than 10 years ago; we both laughed. I moved on.

There are subtle aspects of aging that probably can't be eradicated no matter what the physical situation is. Once you aquire enough experience to see the shape of the world, you inevitably lose an innocence that is born of ignorance. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. When you've seen people treat each other like crap, take cynical advantage of those less powerful, and wrap it up with sanctimonious, righteous bullshit, it's hard to keep an open heart. That won't change, even if the fountain of youth is discovered.

Maybe it's a good thing that old people look old. Otherwise, we would have beautiful, ageless, bitter, cynical burn-outs wandering about. Not that everyone who gets old becomes bitter and cynical, but a good percentage do. It's inevitable.

There are young folk who act like they already have their life behind them. They are bitter and cynical even now, at what to me looks like the prime of youth. 33 year old women who fear they won't find a life mate before their biological clock runs out. 22 year old actor/waiter types who fret that their teen looks are gone, and they haven't gotten their big break. Time is running out. Tenure-track professors don't do well after 35. You can't be a professional athlete these days unless you pick your sport and start training by six or even younger.

The culture of youth is pervasive and insidious. By 36, you are no longer part of the 'coveted 18 to 35 demographic'. Advertisers no longer can count on your mindless brand loyalty to the last product message you saw. If you have kids, you can see the consumerism machine already picking on them, sussing out their weaknesses and insecurities. Even PBS shows have a quick McDonald's 'sponsorship spot'. Disney and Mattel already have the little ones in their databases, and are projecting future profits accordingly.

Of course, old people are still part of the money mill; they're good for a few nickels more. They've been trained since youth to take the bait. AARP, 401K's, Viagra, osteoporosis, and of course the inevitable: Depends.

We've come full circle.

the way to defeat evil

2008-02-24T10:01:00.001-08:00

is to conspire against it

two great links

2008-02-18T11:15:00.000-08:00

www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/carrot&stick

and:

http://kugell.com/onesmallanswer.html

distributed physics

2008-02-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

These are some quick notes on my crazy ideas on how to create a scalable, distributed, shared artificial reality:

* Everything in the system is an object, with a bunch of attributes, some static (not normally changed) and some dynamic. Static ones include size, shape and mass; dynamic attributes include position, orientation, linear and angular velocity.

* Every object has an authoritative server who manages that object

* An avatar is a type of object that happens to be controlled by a user

* Region servers keep track of the objects in their volume of influence (overlapping?)

* Objects compute their own dynamics, based on their attributes, internal state, and information they acquire about their environment. The result is a trajectory -- the object's motion plan based on present information (maybe .5 or 1 second into the future -- enough to cover maximum network lag).

* Collisions are handled as follows: an object queries the objects near it (how does it know who is near? ask the region server). The other object returns information about its planned trajectory (as well as size & shape if we haven't seen that object before, or it's been modified). If the trajectories of the two objects indicate a collision, our object modifies its trajectory accordingly. In most cases, the other object will do the same (query our trajectory, compute whether it needs to deflect).

* A viewer is a piece of code that queries objects and visualizes them for a user. In practice, there will probably be some sort of registration system: a viewer registers with an object (through its server, or proxied through the region server) to get updates. The object will then send a stream of time-stamped messages with its present trajectory (velocity, rotation over some time period -- possibly buffered like an audio stream? smoothness vs. latency, ala VOIP). The trajectory is good for its specified time period, or until a new trajectory message supersedes it. The viewer can choose how to handle missing data (trajectory completes, no new message); it could extrapolate (ala Second Life viewer), just freeze the object, or even run client-side physics to try to guess what the object might do.

A system like this should allow a large world with many objects to be distributed over a number of servers in a scalable fashion. The region server's job is minimal -- it just keeps track of who is 'in' the region (subtlety involves large objects whose center of mass may be in an adjacent region; the region size must be a few times larger than maximum object size). The dynamics and collision detection responsibilities are spread among the active objects, which can be on any number of servers. The region server may also proxy the objects messaging, so viewers don't need point-to-point connections with each object's server -- though perhaps a multi-connection setup would work, and the region server just manages resolving the connection. I'm not enough of a network expert to think this through completely.

The advantage of this sort of architecture, aside from the obvious scalability, is that there is minimal coupling between the parts of the system. The viewer doesn't have to know anything about the physical properties of the objects, or the underlying dynamics used, collision etc; it just presents its stream of object updates as best it can. Different objects can use different physics engines or collision logic; in the end, each object is authoritative for itself, so there can be no long-term discrepancies. The trade-off is probably increased net traffic compared to an SL-style architecture; but I suspect this will be more than offset by the advantages of a distributed topology, and by the ability of viewer clients to make choices about how much data they can handle. You could have 10,000 avatars in a stadium, and each client may choose to fully visualize only the closest 50 people. The rest might be rendered at low resolution, with low-frequency updates; using crowd simulation; or not at all. A viewer with a big pipe might render more of the crowd; a client on a limited bit budget could choose to get less frequent updates and do its own extrapolation.

that's all for now, more to come...

running out the clock

2007-12-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

as we get older, the effective utility of changing is proportional to the
time we have remaining. Recently a young, eager hot-shot programmer told me
to learn a new language and improve my programming skills. My response was,
"I'm almost 50 -- well over half-way through. From here on in, I'm running
out the clock!"

Every year you procrastinate on improving yourself, the less it matters.

Now isn't that a wonderful way to frame the narrative of life?

The Church of Plausible Deniability

2007-11-25T02:53:00.000-08:00

now that's a place I would worship.

Here's an interesting link -- a thread by a number of de-converted Christians. Some of their stories are quite moving really:

http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/11/open-thread-4.html

The last line of the last post says it best:

"I stand by my conclusions on the basis of four simple principles: a) There is no evidence for the existence of the supernatural b) the Bible does not appear to be an inspired document c) the nature of the Christian God is contradictory and nonsensical and d) Christianity simply makes more sense as an evolved belief system than it does as a divine revelation[.]"

- Bill1324, ex-believer

Robot Dreams

2007-11-12T15:12:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about robots. What they can do, what they will be, how we will create them, how they will change us. It starts from an immediate and local problem: figuring out what to do with my life. I've spent a year at Anybots, absorbing robot culture, thinking robot thoughts. Now I have to decide what I'm willing to invest in this crazy idea -- that robots are real, that they want us to make them, and that we will.

The first thing I had to realize is that building robots is not primarily a technical challenge. Sure, it's hard, but it is doable -- of that there is no doubt. Robots of one kind or another already exist, will continue to exist, and will 'evolve', in the sense that they will become more capable, more complex, and more entwined with our lives. The hard part about building robots is deciding what robot to build. On the platonic plane, there exists an infinity of robots, each one perfect in its own way. Choosing the correct perfection to strive for is the challenge, and it is, to quote Beavis and Butthead, "like hard and stuff".

What this means in practice is that robot building is not pure engineering; nor is it simply craft. It is an art. There is at least one great precedent for an art that is at the same time a craft and an engineering discipline: Architecture. It's not the only one, however; more and more, technology, culture, art, and craft are mashed up into a big paste of techno-culture gear. Cars are a lifestyle choice; iPods are a fashion statement. Robots will have feng shui.

Where there's art, there are artists. Who will be the Frank Lloyd Wright, the Karl Benz, the Wozniak & Jobs of robots? There will be big teams of people involved, of course. But, at least at the beginning, I'm pretty sure the important robots will be conceived by auteurs; individuals, or very small groups (ala the Wright Brothers), and they will drive their vision into existence with the kind of single-minded focus and persistence that large organizations can never truly muster.

Another outcome of this view is that you won't see too many typical venture-backed business models. This is going to be a 'hit-driven' business, where the utility of the product is less important than the timing, the trends, the cool factor, the buzz. In some ways that's too bad, because it means that there will be many talented, hard-working folk whose robot dreams will die on the vine. As in similar industries (entertainment, fashion), it will be possible to carve out a career without being the auteur; but for those who want recognition and success, few who are called will be chosen. There will also be the Van Goghs, the ignored geniuses whose importance is only seen later, long after the work is completed, as well as the Picassos who are lauded and feted during their lifetime. There will be the Salieris and one-hit wonders, whose careers burn brightly for a while, but who don't leave a corpus of work important enough to put them in the pantheon of true greats.

I'm not sure what to do with this realization, other than to document it in this, my perfectly unread blog. There are personal implications, such as the distinction between attempting the act of creation myself (writing the song), versus playing second fiddle to another's music (playing in the band). There is no shame in the latter, but if my ambition is to grasp the brass ring, I need to have the opportunity to pursue that path as well. If my own creations don't make the big time, at least I won't be bitter about not having taken the chance to create my own reality.

10,000,000 Lines Of Code Can't Be Wrong

2007-10-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

now, can they?

Artificial Reality

2007-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I called it Artiphys, because at the time I was working with Ed Fredkin on discrete physics (* footnote). I had this idea that one could turn Ed's theory, that the Universe is a digital computer, upside down: create a digital universe of our own, and see what happens in it. Maybe that's why ours exists in the first place (as good a cosmology as any perhaps?)

Lately, I've become involved in a project that may have the potential to realize some of these ideas. OpenSim (www.opensimulator.org) is an open-source implementation of the Second Life protocol, meaning you can use it to run your own Second Life-style 'grid'. In case you didn't know, Second Life uses multiplayer videogame technology to create a 3D world where you can interact with the environment and other characters (called Avatars). It's on the Internets.

My involvement with this project has centered mostly around the physics engine, though my interest in the technology and its implications is much wider than that. But the physics is a great place to start, because it brings up a bunch of interesting intellectual and philosophical questions relating to this whole area, which I like to call "Artifical Reality".

Artificial Reality is different than Virtual Reality in the following way: it doesn't just aim to duplicate our reality in virtual form; it aims to be something 'real' in its own right, with its own rules, entities, interactions, and outcomes. Where VR has always had the connotation that you transform into a digital version of yourself and interact with a digital environment, AR implies a world that exists without you or any 'real' entities, independently. It is a persistent world, that does not stop existing because you take off your VR headset and remove the glove.

Second Life is presently at a stopping point between VR and AR. I think of it as Web 3.0 (see previous post) -- adding presence to information and identity. It also has persistence (it exists when you're not there), but that is mostly due to other flesh-and-blood people who are logged on when you're not. Artificial Reality (I will not submit to the temptation to bump the web version number at this point) adds autonomy and independence to the picture. So we have a heirarchy of information structures that leads from the existence of bits and bytes up to an independent reality that takes its own form and structure:

level 1: information
level 2: identity
level 3: presence
level 4: persistence
level 5: independence

To get to level 5, we need more than just pretty avatars, cool graphic bling, and a slapped-on overlay of videogame-style physics. We need the logic of object interactions to be precisely defined, and that logic has to have some very specific properties if we want the resulting world to be interesting, coherent, and stable. My ultimate dream is to create an alternate reality so rich that it can exhibit some of the features of real reality that I find fascinating, such as the emergence of order out of chaos. This has to do with information theory, entropy, discrete vs. continuous, reversibility, A-life, and a host of other subjects. There is a distinct chance that all of these elements can come together to form something completely new and unexpected. Wouldn't that be fun?

footnotes

* Ed's website, www.digitalphilosophy.org, appears to be down; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy for background. The paper we wrote together at Carnegie Mellon can be found here: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/danbmil/salt/

Ben Goertzel has been talking about similar stuff, to a much wider audience (see my link to his blog). To my knowledge, he has not proposed a concrete model that addresses the low-level discrete physics issue.

There are a number of sci-fi works that touch on this subject:

- The Matrix -- obviously (here's hoping our emergent AGI's aren't as malevolent as Agent Smith). Note that the paradigm of the Matrix still clutches tightly to the idea that a 'real' body must exist somewhere (the people are all kept alive in vats). What's that about?

- Permutation City, a novel by Greg Egan

- Non Serviam a short story by Stanislaw Lem (reprinted in Hofstaedter's The Mind's I

Web 3.0

2007-09-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

web 1.0 is about information

web 2.0 is about identity

web 3.0 is about presence

the unspeakable

2007-09-23T04:37:00.000-07:00

“A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. Suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now!”

-- Kathy Griffin, award acceptance speech at the Emmys.

E! entertainment cut the clip, refusing to air it. Jesus, doesn't anyone have a sense of humor anymore? It's just a fucking religion. Get over it.

"Yes, Julie -- there are dogs in heaven!"

2007-09-02T01:36:00.000-07:00

This just came to me in the middle of the night. It seems so right to say it.

why we code

2007-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

"I have been reading, with great satisfaction, the many articles in magazines about Linux free software. People in the business world are not able to comprehend why the computer people give their work away. I am unable to think about this without becoming emotional. It is no mystery to me why they download their intellectual ideas into the vast, evolving and continually improving computer operating system. It is because their thoughts will live forever as part of the "genetic code" of the computer program. They are putting themselves into the program and their “intellectual DNA" will live forever in cyber-space. As the program evolves and changes, the code they wrote will probably remain hidden deep within it. It is almost like a living thing that is continually evolving and improving. For both me and for the programmers that contribute to Linux, we do it because it makes our lives more meaningful."

-Temple Grandin

sometimes...

2007-07-15T04:11:00.000-07:00

I think to myself, "Fuck -- I'm alive!!"

and that's enough. Sometimes.

the yoke

2007-07-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

What is happening in the Islamic world? The last holdouts are fighting the yoke of modern civilized domestication. Their culture will be subsumed; their values replaced; their traditions discarded or, worse yet, converted into cute token museum pieces. They will eventually take their place at the table of capitalism, consumerism, and pseudo-freedom sans privacy, anonymity, individuality. They better get used to it; everyone else has.

It's all good.