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Being made to believe in a god isn't the same as believing in one. Silicon Valley thinks AI is not an epistemological problem, as if neurons can be perfectly s

Being made to believe in a god isn't the same as believing in one. Silicon Valley thinks AI is not an epistemological problem, as if neurons can be perfectly simulated atomically and that all intelligence processes can be categorized as structured vs. unstructured. Very naive conclusions. Ironically, they BELIEVE if you simulate the axiomatic neuron perfectly, emergent properties of intelligence will mystically emerge after some undefined threshold of complexity. They are permanently unable to simulate the two billion years of neurological evolution and natural selection for such a belief to hold. If you must emulate human intelligence, you must be able to navigate the realm of distilling reality from the overlap between truth and belief. Mocking how humans observe reality isn't enough. Abrahamic religion explored the alternative intelligence problem in great depth over two thousand years ago. It's a pity the results have been lost to Progressive axe grinding.

ralusek 10y ago
For Artificial Intelligence to believe in God would be for it to believe in its makers, which are human. A machine would be intelligent to be aware that it was made by man. A man doesn't need to believe in God to be intelligent. In fact, the two are pretty much inversely related.
- PravlageTiem 10y ago
  Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Thus, if you want full and complete simulation of human intelligence, this is the ultimate benchmark to test against. Furthermore, the purpose of this thought experiment is that you CANNOT know what god an AI would end up believing in. That should make you rethink everything you think you know about theology and reexamine it under epistemological terms
  - aninhumer 10y ago
    >Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Do you have some evidence of that? And even if it's true, is it the only thing that's unique to humans? Indeed, I suspect the interesting part of "believe in god" in terms of intelligence is probably "construct narratives". Assigning a high probability to those narratives reflecting reality (i.e. believing) seems like an aside to the main complexity involved. >"The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee." - Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
    - PravlageTiem 10y ago
      The best case for animals demonstrating religious behavior (which is fundamentally different than believing in a god, mind you) is from a very convoluted interpretation of a food coma. http://bigthink.com/videos/can-animals-be-religious http://bigthink.com/videos/can-animals-be-religious Outside of that considerable stretching, it doesn't exist. Also, I challenge your premise that conflates "belief" with "constructing narratives" Do you believe you will be alive tomorrow? If so, are you constructing a grand-weaving narrative... or simply making a singular belief? Or, more simply, are you just extrapolating off of past experiences?
      - aninhumer 10y ago
        >Also, I challenge your premise that conflates "belief" with "constructing narratives" I didn't conflate belief and narratives, I conflated belief with assigning high probability to those narratives. Sure, there are also simpler predictions we can estimate as well, but I think the thing that makes "belief in god" interesting from the perspective of judging intelligence is the complexity of the narrative. >Outside of that considerable stretching, it doesn't exist. What evidence would convince you that an animal "believed in god"?
        PravlageTiem 10y ago
        To kill two birds with one stone, as soon as animals demonstrate something more akin to tribal-level human behavior of religious worship (the grand fusion of self, environment, social, and mystery into the realm of higher powers that must be feared) and not postmodernist definitions of worship (the grand disconnection of the self from all other factors to appeal to an idealized self that can never manifest thank you CIA involvement in the postmodernist art movement and their unique ability to capture scary mommies everywhere) then I'll consider the idea that animals are demonstrating religious behavior. And further more, if animals DO have religious behavior, then artificial intelligence research across the entire board is WOEFULLY inadequate to represent such a core part of the neurological interaction that generates religious behavior... a core behavioral capacity that was somehow missed in every single behaviorist research paper ever published since mankind mastered animal husbandry. You either get in bed with the idea that only humans worship gods or you have to fundamentally throw all of psychology, sociology, and animal behavior studies completely out the window.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  >For Artificial Intelligence to believe in God would be for it to believe in its makers // That's a very limited sense of the idea of a god, and certainly doesn't match with definitions of God [a singular, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, deity] that I've come across. Merely making something doesn't make you a god, not even if that thing appears to display intelligence. Some sense of one of the characteristics of existing in a separate spiritual realm, having power/knowledge beyond that possible in the present realm, having an existence that's not bounded (eg physically) within the normally experienced space of the "mortals". They seem like a start for basic level definitions of a god.
- healthnutter 10y ago
  > A man doesn't need to believe in God to be intelligent. In fact, the two are pretty much inversely related. Claiming as fact. Citation, please?
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  There are a lot of very smart people who are at at least Deist levels of faith. I'd say it's orthogonal. An example? C.S. Lewis. There is nothing wrong with that sort of metaphor, no matter how much stress you place on it. If you think of religion as a technology, then it can be abused but the abuse doesn't mean it's bad.
  - jcoffland 10y ago
    Or Donald Knuth.
joemi 10y ago
> Abrahamic religion explored the alternative intelligence problem in great depth over two thousand years ago. It's a pity the results have been lost to Progressive axe grinding. I'll take the bait: What in the world are you talking about?
- PravlageTiem 10y ago
  What is monotheism but a comprehensive collection of thought experiments regarding the behavior of a Bronze Age singularity? :D

ralusek 10y ago

For Artificial Intelligence to believe in God would be for it to believe in its makers, which are human. A machine would be intelligent to be aware that it was made by man. A man doesn't need to believe in God to be intelligent. In fact, the two are pretty much inversely related.

PravlageTiem 10y ago
Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Thus, if you want full and complete simulation of human intelligence, this is the ultimate benchmark to test against. Furthermore, the purpose of this thought experiment is that you CANNOT know what god an AI would end up believing in. That should make you rethink everything you think you know about theology and reexamine it under epistemological terms
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >Believing in a god is unique to the human species. No other animal does this. Do you have some evidence of that? And even if it's true, is it the only thing that's unique to humans? Indeed, I suspect the interesting part of "believe in god" in terms of intelligence is probably "construct narratives". Assigning a high probability to those narratives reflecting reality (i.e. believing) seems like an aside to the main complexity involved. >"The anthropologists got it wrong when they named our species Homo sapiens ('wise man'). In any case it's an arrogant and bigheaded thing to say, wisdom being one of our least evident features. In reality, we are Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee." - Terry Pratchett, The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
  - PravlageTiem 10y ago
    The best case for animals demonstrating religious behavior (which is fundamentally different than believing in a god, mind you) is from a very convoluted interpretation of a food coma. http://bigthink.com/videos/can-animals-be-religious http://bigthink.com/videos/can-animals-be-religious Outside of that considerable stretching, it doesn't exist. Also, I challenge your premise that conflates "belief" with "constructing narratives" Do you believe you will be alive tomorrow? If so, are you constructing a grand-weaving narrative... or simply making a singular belief? Or, more simply, are you just extrapolating off of past experiences?
    - aninhumer 10y ago
      >Also, I challenge your premise that conflates "belief" with "constructing narratives" I didn't conflate belief and narratives, I conflated belief with assigning high probability to those narratives. Sure, there are also simpler predictions we can estimate as well, but I think the thing that makes "belief in god" interesting from the perspective of judging intelligence is the complexity of the narrative. >Outside of that considerable stretching, it doesn't exist. What evidence would convince you that an animal "believed in god"?
      - PravlageTiem 10y ago
        To kill two birds with one stone, as soon as animals demonstrate something more akin to tribal-level human behavior of religious worship (the grand fusion of self, environment, social, and mystery into the realm of higher powers that must be feared) and not postmodernist definitions of worship (the grand disconnection of the self from all other factors to appeal to an idealized self that can never manifest thank you CIA involvement in the postmodernist art movement and their unique ability to capture scary mommies everywhere) then I'll consider the idea that animals are demonstrating religious behavior. And further more, if animals DO have religious behavior, then artificial intelligence research across the entire board is WOEFULLY inadequate to represent such a core part of the neurological interaction that generates religious behavior... a core behavioral capacity that was somehow missed in every single behaviorist research paper ever published since mankind mastered animal husbandry. You either get in bed with the idea that only humans worship gods or you have to fundamentally throw all of psychology, sociology, and animal behavior studies completely out the window.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>For Artificial Intelligence to believe in God would be for it to believe in its makers // That's a very limited sense of the idea of a god, and certainly doesn't match with definitions of God [a singular, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, deity] that I've come across. Merely making something doesn't make you a god, not even if that thing appears to display intelligence. Some sense of one of the characteristics of existing in a separate spiritual realm, having power/knowledge beyond that possible in the present realm, having an existence that's not bounded (eg physically) within the normally experienced space of the "mortals". They seem like a start for basic level definitions of a god.
healthnutter 10y ago
> A man doesn't need to believe in God to be intelligent. In fact, the two are pretty much inversely related. Claiming as fact. Citation, please?
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
There are a lot of very smart people who are at at least Deist levels of faith. I'd say it's orthogonal. An example? C.S. Lewis. There is nothing wrong with that sort of metaphor, no matter how much stress you place on it. If you think of religion as a technology, then it can be abused but the abuse doesn't mean it's bad.
- jcoffland 10y ago
  Or Donald Knuth.

joemi 10y ago

> Abrahamic religion explored the alternative intelligence problem in great depth over two thousand years ago. It's a pity the results have been lost to Progressive axe grinding. I'll take the bait: What in the world are you talking about?

PravlageTiem 10y ago
What is monotheism but a comprehensive collection of thought experiments regarding the behavior of a Bronze Age singularity? :D