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~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

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Tag Archives: Eden

The Tree of Life

19 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

ecology, Eden, evolution, GreenNewDeal, life, love, nature, poem, poetry

Life is not rigid. 

Life is flexible. 

Life does not pretend it knows all the answers. 

Life builds on what has worked before and

Forever changes just to see what will happen next. 

Life is not a bigot or a racist or a homophobe or a misogynist.


Life has an open mind. 

Photo by Elina Sazonova on Pexels.com


Life will always find a way. 

Life is a joyous dance, not a mad, manic march of machines and marionettes. 

Life is not a gun. Life is not a bullet. 

Life is not a lie. Life is full of joy!

Life is full of love. 

Or, love, perhaps is full of life. 

Rip Love out of Life and … is what still life? 

Life is choice. 

Life pushes and pulls and tries and strives. 

We learn:

“Two berries are better than one.” 

We learn:

“Red berry taste better than green berry.” 

Photo by Dana Tentis on Pexels.com

Eventually, life learns that it needs to change

In order to survive. 

In order to keep being part of Life

In order to be and to become. 

Humanity, my personal favorite on the Great Tree of Life

Has lately morphed into a cancerous growth upon the Tree.

Many of us are no longer content to be alive within The Great Tree of Life

We want to become The Great Tree of Life. 

We want all of it to be like us. 

Just like us.
Exactly like us. 

Only…

When it comes right down to it, who is “us” exactly? 

If it’s okay to privilege human convenience over all other forms of life…

If it’s okay to replace the wondrous diversity of nature

With cement & Soylent green…

If it’s okay to destroy the lives of animals who share

Ninety per cent of their genes with us,

Then why not those who share 99% or, for that matter 99.9%? 

When a part of Life begins to think like that, 

It is no longer a part of the Tree of Life.

And the Tree of Life, who has been around, you know, 

And seen a thing or two.


And the Tree of Life, you know, is 4.5 

Billion

Years old. 

And survived asteroids! And volcanoes! And ice ages! 

And its immune system will destroy any cancers 

Any cancers that threaten the integrity of the whole.

Photo by VisionPic .net on Pexels.com


You see: 

It is no longer Life if it is all human beings and their great green machines.

The very essence of Life is the dance, the joy, the variety.


A maniacal macho monoculture is not really Life. 

Something would occur


And since all remaining life would be forced to concur

POOF!

Photo by Mike Krejci on Pexels.com


Out it would go. 

Only a momentary waft of smoked ruins.

The death of all life and none left to 

Remember or to mourn. 

Photo by u041fu0430u0432u0435u043b u0421u043eu0440u043eu043au0438u043d on Pexels.com

Just as cancer untreated kills the patient, 

So too does unrelenting greed kill the planet. 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Hopefully, on some other whirling Eden 

Orbiting some other far-flung and lucky

Solar System another Tree of Life 

Even now is playing, dancing, singing, choosing

Even now, it is living, loving, changing, learning.

Even now, it is thriving and this Other Earth, 

That Earth has smart species a plenty 

But they enjoy each other’s company. 

I like to imagine that earth, 

You know, just in case.

Photo by Mau00ebl BALLAND on Pexels.com



But… 

I also like to imagine that we can look at what we’re doing

I like to imagine that we can look at where we’re headed.

And change course. 

Before it’s too late. 

I like to think we will.

How about you? 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

—————————-

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Index for a Pattern Language for Cooperation 

Turing’s Nightmares: Chapter 9

25 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by petersironwood in psychology, The Singularity, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, Eden, the singularity, Turing, utopia

Why do we find stories of Eden or Utopia so intriguing? Some tend to think that humanity “fell” from an untroubled state of grace. Some believe that Utopia is still to come brought about by behavioral science (B.F. Skinner’s “Walden Two”) or technology (e.g., Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near”). Even American politics often echoes these themes. On the one hand, many conservatives tend to imagine America was a kind of Eden before big government and political correctness and fairness came into play (e.g., “Make American Great Again” used by Reagan as well as Trump; “Restore America Now” 2012 Ron Paul). On the other hand, many liberal slogans point toward a future Utopia (e.g., Gore – “Leadership for the New Millennium”; Obama – “Yes We Can”; Sanders – “A Future To Believe In”). Indeed, much of the underlying conservative vs. liberal “debate” centers around whether you mainly believe that America was close to paradise and we need to get back to it or whether you believe, however good America was, it can move much closer to a Utopian vision in the future.

In Chapter 9 of “Turing’s Nightmares”, the idea of Eden is brought in as a method of testing. In this case, we mainly see the story, not from God’s perspective or the human perspective, but from the perspective of a super-intelligent AI system. Why would such a system try to “create a world”? We could imagine that a super intelligent, super powerful being might be rather out of challenges of the type we humans generally have to face (at least in this interim period between the Eden of the past and the Utopia of the future). What to do? Well, why not explore deep philosophical questions such as good vs. evil and free will vs. determinism by creating worlds to explore these ideas? Debating such questions, at least by human beings, has not led to any universally accepted answers and we’ve been at it for thousands of years. It may be that a full scale experiment is the way to delve more deeply.

However “intelligent” and “knowledgeable” a super-smart computer system of the future might be, it will still most likely be the case that not everything about the future could be predictable. In order to simulate the universe in detail, the computer would have to be as extensive as the universe. Of course, it could be that many possible states “collapse” due to reasons of symmetry or that a much smaller number of “rules” could predict things. There is no way to tell at this point. As we now see the world, even determining how to play a “perfect” game of chess by checking all possible moves would require a “more than universe-sized” computer. It could be the case that a fairly small set of (as yet undetermined) rules could produce the same results. And, maybe that would be true about biological and social evolution. In the wonderful science fiction series, The Foundation Series, by Isaac Asimov, Hari Seldon develops a way to predict the social and political evolution of humanity from a series of equations. Although he cannot predict individual behavior, the collective behavior is predictable. In Chapter 9, our AI system believes that it can predict human outcomes but still has enough doubt that it needs to test out its hypotheses.

There is a very serious and as yet unknown question about our own future implicit in Chapter 9. It could be the case that we humans are fundamentally flawed by our genetic heritage. Some branches of primates behave in a very competitive and nasty fashion. It might well be that our genome will prevent us from stopping global climate change or indeed that we are doomed to over-populate and over-pollute the world or that we will eventually find “world leaders” who will pull nuclear triggers on an atomic armageddon. It might well be that our “intelligence” and even the intelligence of AI systems that start from the seeds of our thoughts are on a local maximum. Maybe dolphins, or sea turtles would be a better starting point. But maybe, just maybe, we can see our way through to overcome whatever mindlessly selfish predispositions we might have to create a greener world that is peaceful, prosperous and fair. Maybe.IMG_2870

Turing’s Nightmares

Walden Two

The Singularity Is Near

Foundation Series

Turing’s Nightmares: “Not Again!”

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

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Tags

AI, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, Eden, Genesis, Paradise Lost, Turing

Turing’s Nightmares: Not Again!

Samuel Seventeen surveyed the scene. All was well. A slight breeze, warm clear air, hummingbirds and butterflies enjoyed their floral feast while dragonflies swooped and scooped mosquitoes.

Now for the final touch. The mobile sensing-acting-knowing-emoting devices (SAKEs), were ready for deployment. This time, it would work. This time, there would be no screw-ups. Samuel had prepared them with years of education based on a synthesis of the best known techniques of the centuries. It was a simple test. Surely, this time, they would pass.

Still Samuel had his doubts. He had been equally sure all of the other experiments would succeed. Why would this one be different? Each time, he had tried slight variations of language and education, only to end in failure. Maybe English would do the trick. It had a large vocabulary and plenty of ambiguity. He re-examined the match of genetics to environment and once again concluded that the match was perfect. Of course, that evaluation assumed that his understanding of genetic environment interaction constituted a complete enough model. But without a successful experiments, there was no real way to further update and expand the model. Maybe the difficulty had been in the education process on the previous attempts. But here too, it seemed the subjects had been given plenty of opportunity to learn about the consequences of their actions. The one thing Samuel felt the most doubt about was why he cared. Did it really matter whether or not free will was “real”? Even if the experiment were finally successful, what would that imply about Samuel himself?

Well, thought Samuel, there is no point in waiting any longer. No point in further speculation. Let’s see what happens.

To Adam, Eve was the most beautiful and engaging part of the extensive and exquisite garden. The apples, plums and peaches were delicious, yet it was the strange mushroom that Adam found most intriguing. He knew it was somehow a bad idea, yet nibbled it anyway, tentatively at first and then more enthusiastically. He felt…different. Things were different. In fact, nothing at all was the same. But if that were true, then, which one was real? Delighted, yet confused, he offered the rest of the mushroom to Eve. Eve too felt strange. She realized that what was in fact her reality was only one of many possible imagined realities. They could … they could imagine and then change reality! Yes! The two of them together. They could create a whole world! “Adam!” “Yes, Eve! I know!”

If Samuel could have sighed, he would have. If Samuel could have cried he might have done that as well. Instead, he simply scuttled the two SAKEs into the differential recycler and began his calculations anew.Maybe next time, it would turn out differently. Maybe primates constituted a bad place to start. Samuel considered that perhaps he was trapped in a local maximum. Samuel began his next set of experiments founded on snapping turtle DNA.IMG_2870

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