Misc. Conjectures Re: AGI and Evolution
#5181·Tyler MillsOP, 3 days agoBut this depends on what a "problem" is; any output will be the solution to some problem, somewhere, so all programs would have unlimited reach.
So reach should only ever be invoked with respect to existing knowledge? So a program's reach is the intersection of its codomain and the solutions to known problems.
#5180·Tyler MillsOP, 3 days agoMaybe this definition accommodates both the multiversal and atemporal aspects of reality: a program's reach is the set of its outputs that solve problems in any universe (past, present or adjacent).
But this depends on what a "problem" is; any output will be the solution to some problem, somewhere, so all programs would have unlimited reach.
#5179·Tyler MillsOP, 3 days agoFun question. Say the reach of a program is the set of all problems it can solve or help solve (whether anyone knows, or whether the problems exist yet). All of that program's possible outputs together comprise the implication space -- it sounds like "codomain" is actual term. The instantiation of each item in the codomain is an occurrence of my "inferential novelty". The codomain is implicit in a program when it is created, but not all of that output will help solve problems. The program's reach is the subset that does.
Maybe this definition accommodates both the multiversal and atemporal aspects of reality: a program's reach is the set of its outputs that solve problems in any universe (past, present or adjacent).
#5172·Dennis Hackethal, 7 days agoHow much overlap is there between the concept of inferential novelty and reach, if any?
Fun question. Say the reach of a program is the set of all problems it can solve or help solve (whether anyone knows, or whether the problems exist yet). All of that program's possible outputs together comprise the implication space -- it sounds like "codomain" is actual term. The instantiation of each item in the codomain is an occurrence of my "inferential novelty". The codomain is implicit in a program when it is created, but not all of that output will help solve problems. The program's reach is the subset that does.
Would it help to distinguish between dogmatic vs. critical information processing?
That’s a distinction I’ve been using. All programs written to date are dogmatic. Whereas a genuine evolutionary algorithm would be critical, at least in part.
We don’t know how to write critical code. We only know how to write dogmatic code that looks critical.
#5106·Tyler MillsOP, 13 days agoFor the changes made by a source of variation to be dependent on the content of any knowledge in the target, the source would have to contain knowledge itself. (The DNA mutation sources do not.) Blind changes are dependent on the medium in which information is contained, like an A versus a G in a strand of DNA (assuming these are information media). But the change made to the A or G by the cosmic ray is independent of the information they are hosting, if any. Any changes by the ray are dependent on the physical/chemical structure of the target, the substrate. Information is substrate independent. It is not the information stored in the A or G that is determining what changes are made to them.
Cosmic rays have been known to flip bits in computers, eg impacting election results: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021arXiv210505103N/abstract
However, due to computational universality, we should be able to simulate a knowledge-growing system plus cosmic rays impacting that system.
So then at that point the source of the mutation is part of the program again…
#5101·Tyler MillsOP, 13 days agoClaim: It is useful (if not crucial) to distinguish between two notions of novelty: inferential and non-inferential.
Knowledge that is inferentially novel may never have been seen before, but was already implicit in existing knowledge; it results from application and composition of existing knowledge (e.g. the running of programs). What is novel in this way can be instantiated without any external epistemic (knowledge-related) influence. A program needs infrastructure to allow its computation to occur; it does not need another program, in an epistemic sense: If there's a dependency, we should consider the two to be part of the same "epistemic system." Let's say the dependent target has no "implication space" until its needed source is causally linked to it. The source may have its own implication space. Once "joined," a new implication space is defined.
Inferentially novel output (the instantiation of knowledge in an implication space) is all that current computer software (and all AI) is capable of. These systems "create" knowledge only in this sense.
How much overlap is there between the concept of inferential novelty and reach, if any?
#5144·Zakery Mizell, 8 days agoThe term "death" is being used too vaguely. (Or else I am misunderstanding.) Do you think that a gene replicating and then dying (while its offspring survives) is "death?" A "refutation?"
Or do you mean "total elimination of the allele" as "death" or "refutation?"
I've been thinking of death as the loss of an instance of an idea from the soup. Part of what I'm curious about here is the epistemic difference between deaths of instances, and deaths of the whole lineage (which seems like a "refutation" in a different, more meaningful sense). See #5167.
#5152·Zakery Mizell, 8 days agoThe criticism "this is replicating less" should be generalized to "this allele/information has less causal power than an alternative." That has tremendous weight.
There is a natural preference for the one with more causal power, it is naturally selected over alternatives.
However, it is not clear to me how you are "weighing" these criticisms. So maybe my weighing isn't relevant to your weighing.
By "weight" I meant that there being fewer instances of an idea (or less causal power, as you propose), doesn't actually criticize anything (content-wise), until the idea drops to zero (at which point, that idea is gone, and the knowledge content in the system has meaningfully changed -- epistemically changed...). Extinction (death of all instances -- and alleles..?) does seem like a refutation of the idea/gene.
This is the same as in an economy, seems to me. Maybe part of what can be clarified in this discussion will be these different modes of criticism. Please see #5133 and related.
#5142·Zakery Mizell, 8 days agoIn addition to scarcity, you have to assume unbounded growth of the population in an ecosystem, which does not happen.
Does not happen? With unlimited resources, why can't it? Competition will not always prevent it, will it?
#5141·Zakery Mizell, 8 days agoScarcity of resources should not be assumed. You want underlying necessity of the mechanism, not a strained analogy. There is no scarcity for idea resources.
But couldn't scarcity of resources be part of the underlying mechanism? We wouldn't want to say, "assume no speed limit to mass, because we want the underlying necessity of the mechanism of gravity." But the scarcity of speed is integral to the mechanism.
no scarcity for idea resources
"Idea resources" are computational resources, which are always scarce. Even with universality (modulo resources), the limits of the resources must have some effects on the evolution, I would think. Some developmental paths cannot be taken.
#5091·Tyler MillsOP, 16 days agoIf other criteria for the selection of conjectures were built into the system, such as in the genes of a human, the growth of knowledge would be bounded to only conjectures meeting those criteria, even if the variation/conjecture aspect of the process were proceeding via a random process with no built-in knowledge. Fixed criteria means bounded knowledge, means no universality. So for unbounded progress (universality), the criteria must also be varied. But how are they criticized? What criteria for their selection can there be to avoid a regress, except survival?
Greater causal power, of which differential survival is a subset.
#5130·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoMaybe natural selection logically does not require death, but when we introduce a scarcity of resources, isn't death an inevitable byproduct? Eventually, the best replicating will be those which take the resources from others? If no death, then number of entities increases without bound. So any real system will have it, or will stop functioning when the limit is reached.
It's sort of like: the "this is replicating less" criticism has no actual weight to it unless there is a point beneath which any less fecundity = bye-bye.
**If things with arbitrarily low fecundity are left intact forever, how is differential replication a criticism?**
The criticism "this is replicating less" should be generalized to "this allele/information has less causal power than an alternative." That has tremendous weight.
There is a natural preference for the one with more causal power, it is naturally selected over alternatives.
However, it is not clear to me how you are "weighing" these criticisms. So maybe my weighing isn't relevant to your weighing.
#5130·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoMaybe natural selection logically does not require death, but when we introduce a scarcity of resources, isn't death an inevitable byproduct? Eventually, the best replicating will be those which take the resources from others? If no death, then number of entities increases without bound. So any real system will have it, or will stop functioning when the limit is reached.
It's sort of like: the "this is replicating less" criticism has no actual weight to it unless there is a point beneath which any less fecundity = bye-bye.
**If things with arbitrarily low fecundity are left intact forever, how is differential replication a criticism?**
The term "death" is being used too vaguely. (Or else I am misunderstanding.) Do you think that a gene replicating and then dying (while its offspring survives) is "death?" A "refutation?"
Or do you mean "total elimination of the allele" as "death" or "refutation?"
#5130·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoMaybe natural selection logically does not require death, but when we introduce a scarcity of resources, isn't death an inevitable byproduct? Eventually, the best replicating will be those which take the resources from others? If no death, then number of entities increases without bound. So any real system will have it, or will stop functioning when the limit is reached.
It's sort of like: the "this is replicating less" criticism has no actual weight to it unless there is a point beneath which any less fecundity = bye-bye.
**If things with arbitrarily low fecundity are left intact forever, how is differential replication a criticism?**
In addition to scarcity, you have to assume unbounded growth of the population in an ecosystem, which does not happen.
#5130·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoMaybe natural selection logically does not require death, but when we introduce a scarcity of resources, isn't death an inevitable byproduct? Eventually, the best replicating will be those which take the resources from others? If no death, then number of entities increases without bound. So any real system will have it, or will stop functioning when the limit is reached.
It's sort of like: the "this is replicating less" criticism has no actual weight to it unless there is a point beneath which any less fecundity = bye-bye.
**If things with arbitrarily low fecundity are left intact forever, how is differential replication a criticism?**
Scarcity of resources should not be assumed. You want underlying necessity of the mechanism, not a strained analogy. There is no scarcity for idea resources.
#5133·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoNon-specific criticisms, those not taking into account the content of their target, are always "analogue" (or quantitative as opposed to qualitative) in the sense of being based on a variable whose quantity changes in a medium distinct from that hosting the knowledge it is serving as criticism for. (E.g. capital allocation in an economy; number of instances of a replicator.)
The change in population of a replicator is non-specific to its content?
#5133·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoNon-specific criticisms, those not taking into account the content of their target, are always "analogue" (or quantitative as opposed to qualitative) in the sense of being based on a variable whose quantity changes in a medium distinct from that hosting the knowledge it is serving as criticism for. (E.g. capital allocation in an economy; number of instances of a replicator.)
The capital allocated to a business is non-specific to its content? Conflating with the prices of a good?
#5132·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoSpecific criticisms, those taking into account the content of their target, are always discrete and absolute because they identify a contradiction. (E.g. criticisms of a scientific theory.)
But the extinction of a replicator by destroying its last instance does seem absolute, unlike the change in its population, which I suggest is non-specific to the content in #5133.
#5136·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoWouldn't it have to be instantiated in the overall system itself, which contains the replicators (among other things?)? Otherwise, how could that variable be a form of criticism by the system?
Yes, the quantity variable is instantiated in the collective physical substrate comprising all of the replicator instances.
#5135·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoNone of the replicators have that information. If that quantity variable exists, it's instantiated somewhere else.
Wouldn't it have to be instantiated in the overall system itself, which contains the replicators (among other things?)? Otherwise, how could that variable be a form of criticism by the system?
#5134·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoHow is the quantity of a replicator not based in the same medium as the replicator?
None of the replicators have that information. If that quantity variable exists, it's instantiated somewhere else.
#5133·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoNon-specific criticisms, those not taking into account the content of their target, are always "analogue" (or quantitative as opposed to qualitative) in the sense of being based on a variable whose quantity changes in a medium distinct from that hosting the knowledge it is serving as criticism for. (E.g. capital allocation in an economy; number of instances of a replicator.)
How is the quantity of a replicator not based in the same medium as the replicator?
#5132·Tyler MillsOP, 8 days agoSpecific criticisms, those taking into account the content of their target, are always discrete and absolute because they identify a contradiction. (E.g. criticisms of a scientific theory.)
Non-specific criticisms, those not taking into account the content of their target, are always "analogue" (or quantitative as opposed to qualitative) in the sense of being based on a variable whose quantity changes in a medium distinct from that hosting the knowledge it is serving as criticism for. (E.g. capital allocation in an economy; number of instances of a replicator.)
Specific criticisms, those taking into account the content of their target, are always discrete and absolute because they identify a contradiction. (E.g. criticisms of a scientific theory.)