Saturday, November 19, 2011
On A Dynamic World
I play a lot of video games and one of the major limiting factors in games today and really from their inception, is the fact that no matter how pretty the world is, it's ultimately scripted. The creatures and characters within the world move along a predefined path, even if that path is very wide. You'll notice it whenever you try to do something out of bounds of what the programmers intended. Sometimes you'll find the thing you're interacting with to repeat itself because it simply doesn't know how to respond beyond what it's been told to accept. With artificial intelligence there is a test to see if a machine has the ability to think for itself. So far no computer system has completely passed this test, although many have tried. It's hard to say just when we'll find ourselves surrounded by machines that think. The question is though, if we were to turn a test like that on ourselves how well would we actually do given a long enough testing period.
Each of us lives our life based on the experiences we've gained over time. We have the capability to learn from these experiences and with any luck our mistakes in the past help prevent mistakes in the future. If you're anything like me though, it doesn't really stop the mistakes from happening though. Instead it's just a variation on a theme over and over again. Could this be because we ourselves are limited by life parameters? A computer has no idea how to respond to a question about theoretical physics if it has no experience with it. It has to be programmed into its system for it to have any understanding. Our brains are very much the same way. If you were to ask me a question about theoretical physics I'd do roughly as well as a computer that could speak. So let's say both the computer and I are given some experience and we're now able to respond to questions regarding the theory of everything. Our answers would again be limited to the knowledge we've been given combined with our previous experiences. As a rational creature, I may be able to make intuitive leaps in logic based on seemingly unrelated fields of study. The computer would also be able answer in its own way. Given time though, eventually we'd both come to the upper limit of our knowledge and experience.
When we meet new people for the first time we may find them refreshing and interesting because at least initially, they are outside our experience. What they say or do may seem like a mystery until we get to know them better. As we get to know them we can start to predict how they'll react to certain situations. If we spend a really long time with them we may start to know them better than they know themselves. The things they do become almost repetitive. That's not exactly a bad thing either. No person has endless experience, even if we wish we did. On a long enough timeline everyone will come to a point where the well is dry. If that's the case then just how dynamic are we compared to some video game character or robot that's being tested for its ability to think on its own? We look a computer system and decide through a complex series of tests that it doesn't think and yet if we were to extend the same kind of test to ourselves it's likely we'd eventually come to a point where we'd be hard pressed to say if we have intelligent behavior. What if there is something else out there in the universe that has its own standards of determining if something is intelligent? Something with standards so far beyond what we can comprehend that we'd be looked at roughly the same way we look at a calculator. Yes we can do simple tasks, but we can't "think". Does that call into question our abilities or our standards? Just how sure can we be when our only basis for intelligent thought is how everything compares to our own minds?
Each of us lives our life based on the experiences we've gained over time. We have the capability to learn from these experiences and with any luck our mistakes in the past help prevent mistakes in the future. If you're anything like me though, it doesn't really stop the mistakes from happening though. Instead it's just a variation on a theme over and over again. Could this be because we ourselves are limited by life parameters? A computer has no idea how to respond to a question about theoretical physics if it has no experience with it. It has to be programmed into its system for it to have any understanding. Our brains are very much the same way. If you were to ask me a question about theoretical physics I'd do roughly as well as a computer that could speak. So let's say both the computer and I are given some experience and we're now able to respond to questions regarding the theory of everything. Our answers would again be limited to the knowledge we've been given combined with our previous experiences. As a rational creature, I may be able to make intuitive leaps in logic based on seemingly unrelated fields of study. The computer would also be able answer in its own way. Given time though, eventually we'd both come to the upper limit of our knowledge and experience.
When we meet new people for the first time we may find them refreshing and interesting because at least initially, they are outside our experience. What they say or do may seem like a mystery until we get to know them better. As we get to know them we can start to predict how they'll react to certain situations. If we spend a really long time with them we may start to know them better than they know themselves. The things they do become almost repetitive. That's not exactly a bad thing either. No person has endless experience, even if we wish we did. On a long enough timeline everyone will come to a point where the well is dry. If that's the case then just how dynamic are we compared to some video game character or robot that's being tested for its ability to think on its own? We look a computer system and decide through a complex series of tests that it doesn't think and yet if we were to extend the same kind of test to ourselves it's likely we'd eventually come to a point where we'd be hard pressed to say if we have intelligent behavior. What if there is something else out there in the universe that has its own standards of determining if something is intelligent? Something with standards so far beyond what we can comprehend that we'd be looked at roughly the same way we look at a calculator. Yes we can do simple tasks, but we can't "think". Does that call into question our abilities or our standards? Just how sure can we be when our only basis for intelligent thought is how everything compares to our own minds?
Sunday, November 13, 2011
On Changing Horses
For many of us our path through life is set before we really have much say in it. That's not to say we have no choice but there is a lot of factors beyond our ability to change. Let's say you grew up wanting to be a robotics designer because it seemed like something wonderful. You live in a rural area where the majority of people around you go into trades rather than high tech industries. It's not impossible to follow the path, it's just that you're going to have more influences that steer you towards something else. Possibly something you didn't even think of in the first place.
It's seems that everyone has goals for their life and that's good because it gives you something to strive for. It creates purpose beyond simply existing for the sake of existing. These goals could be as common as graduating, getting married, or finding a job that pays you a lot of money. They could be noble like moving to Africa to help those in need or searching for a cure to a cruel disease. What do you do if you don't have goals? I'm not talking about lazy people who are content with doing nothing for as long as possible. I'm talking about those who just don't know what they want. For them trying to figure out what they want from life is like a baby trying to express the fact that it's hungry, they don't even know how to ask. Looking around it may seem like everyone else has it figured out or at least is on the path to figuring it out. They have things they're working towards or they've accomplished already, meanwhile your own life seems to be stalled as you try and figure out which direction you're supposed to be pointed in.
So you're on your road of life that was set out for you and you start to wonder if where you're going is really the place for you. Everything up until that point could have been working towards something that is now in question. Is it possible to step off the path and go somewhere else? It seems that it's very hard to make the change once you've committed to something. There are those out there who would say something about making a bed and sleeping in it but this life where it's entirely possible there isn't anything afterwards. We don't know how long we're here for so shouldn't every attempt be made to get the most out of it? For some they don't get to change direction until they've already spent a lifetime going down another road. After thirty years they can finally retire from the choices they made a long time ago. That can't be the only option though. So how do we change horses midstream without falling in?
It's seems that everyone has goals for their life and that's good because it gives you something to strive for. It creates purpose beyond simply existing for the sake of existing. These goals could be as common as graduating, getting married, or finding a job that pays you a lot of money. They could be noble like moving to Africa to help those in need or searching for a cure to a cruel disease. What do you do if you don't have goals? I'm not talking about lazy people who are content with doing nothing for as long as possible. I'm talking about those who just don't know what they want. For them trying to figure out what they want from life is like a baby trying to express the fact that it's hungry, they don't even know how to ask. Looking around it may seem like everyone else has it figured out or at least is on the path to figuring it out. They have things they're working towards or they've accomplished already, meanwhile your own life seems to be stalled as you try and figure out which direction you're supposed to be pointed in.
So you're on your road of life that was set out for you and you start to wonder if where you're going is really the place for you. Everything up until that point could have been working towards something that is now in question. Is it possible to step off the path and go somewhere else? It seems that it's very hard to make the change once you've committed to something. There are those out there who would say something about making a bed and sleeping in it but this life where it's entirely possible there isn't anything afterwards. We don't know how long we're here for so shouldn't every attempt be made to get the most out of it? For some they don't get to change direction until they've already spent a lifetime going down another road. After thirty years they can finally retire from the choices they made a long time ago. That can't be the only option though. So how do we change horses midstream without falling in?
Sunday, August 28, 2011
On Escape
I love television. There are many times where I hate that I love it. For as long as I can remember it was this wonderful other world where anything could happen. Well happen within budget for television. When I was little I would wake up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. Even though it was Saturday and the sun wouldn't be up for hours, I was awake and excited to see what would happen on this week's episode. Thinking about it, I can tie specific television shows to the various times of my life. The Flintstones are forever associated with summer in Wisconsin, where I had to barter with my grandmother over just how much television time I could have before it "rotted my eyes." Happy Days kept me company right after I moved away for college. It's probably not exactly healthy to have television shows be so inherently embedded in my life, but they are my escape. That got me thinking about how just about everything in our lives are a form of escape from something.
I should preface this whole idea with the fact that I don't exactly believe that escape is a bad thing. It's most likely something we all need at various times in our lives. It can almost be equated to sleep, a necessary recharging in order to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Sleep itself could be considered an inescapable escape from reality. So is it possible that everything is just a means to get away from something else? As I've mentioned before life requires death in order to live. Maybe we need to constantly be escaping from something in order to maintain some kind of balance. Television is an escape into another world. One that's funnier, or scarier, or more interesting, or at least better lit than my own life. Music is there to drown out the silence. Children help us outlive our own mortality. Vacations allow us to leave our every day lives.
The thing about escapes is that they are our chance to break free, even if it's only for a little while. Most of the time we have to come back. Back to the silence. Back to the reality that some day we will die. Back to our daily life. And to be honest maybe it's not such a bad thing to have to return. In a strange way the fleetingness of any escape makes it that much sweeter while it does last. Although what would life be like if there was no need for escape?
I should preface this whole idea with the fact that I don't exactly believe that escape is a bad thing. It's most likely something we all need at various times in our lives. It can almost be equated to sleep, a necessary recharging in order to maintain any semblance of normalcy. Sleep itself could be considered an inescapable escape from reality. So is it possible that everything is just a means to get away from something else? As I've mentioned before life requires death in order to live. Maybe we need to constantly be escaping from something in order to maintain some kind of balance. Television is an escape into another world. One that's funnier, or scarier, or more interesting, or at least better lit than my own life. Music is there to drown out the silence. Children help us outlive our own mortality. Vacations allow us to leave our every day lives.
The thing about escapes is that they are our chance to break free, even if it's only for a little while. Most of the time we have to come back. Back to the silence. Back to the reality that some day we will die. Back to our daily life. And to be honest maybe it's not such a bad thing to have to return. In a strange way the fleetingness of any escape makes it that much sweeter while it does last. Although what would life be like if there was no need for escape?
Sunday, July 17, 2011
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