[p2p-research] Building the One Machine, call for discussion

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Mushin et al,

I'm going to publish two items, hoping you will pitch in.

You have time, it's slated for the seventh,
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/why-the-one-machine-wont-take-over/2008/11/07,
and eight,
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/individual-consciousness-is-not-enough-the-case-for-virtual-collective-selves/2008/11/08,
respectively

The orginal source is from
http://www.twine.com/item/11ktvpjz6-rl/how-to-build-the-global-mind

*text 1:*

Why the One Machine won't take
over<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/why-the-one-machine-wont-take-over/2008/11/07>

 "Because humans are the actual witnesses and knowers of what the One
Machine does and thinks, the function of the OM will very likely be to serve
and amplify humans, rather than to replace them. It will be a system that is
comprised of humans and machines working together, for human benefit, not
for machine benefit. This is a very different future outlook than that of
people who predict a kind of "Terminator-esque" future in which machines get
smart enough to exterminate the human race. It won't happen that way.
Machines will very likely not get that smart for a long time, if ever,
because they are not going to be conscious. I think we should be much more
afraid of humans exterminating humanity than of machines doing it."

The above citation is from a brilliant contribution by Nova
Spivack<http://www.twine.com/item/11ktvpjz6-rl/how-to-build-the-global-mind>,
which is a counter-argument to the transhumanist hypothesis that 'AI
machines will take over'. The reason they can't, is that consciousness is a
irreducible founding characteristic of the universe, which cannot be
synthetized or 'created' artificially.

The key argument is this:

*If consciousness is a property of the substrate, then it may be impossible
to synthesize. For example, we never synthesize space, time or energy — no
matter what we do, we are simply using the space, time and energy of the
substrate that is this universe.*

*Nova Spivack:*

"*Today, humans still make up the majority of processors in the OM. Each
human nervous system comprises billions of processors, and there are
billions of humans. That's a lot of processors.*

*However, Ray Kurzweil posits that the balance of processors is rapidly
moving towards favoring machines — and that sometime in the latter half of
this century, machine processors will outnumber or at least outcompute all
the human processors combined, perhaps many times over.*

*While agree with Ray's point that machine intelligence will soon outnumber
human intelligence, I'm skeptical of Kurzweil's timeline, especially in
light of recent research that shows evidence of quantum level computation
within microtubules inside neurons. If in fact the brain computes at the
tubulin level then it may have many orders of magnitude more processors than
currently though. This remains to be determined. Those who argue against
this claim that the brain can be modelled on a Classical level and that
quantum computing need not be invoked. To be clear, I am not claiming that
the brain is a quantum computer, I am claiming that there seems to be
evidence that computation in the brain takes place at the quantum level, or
near it. Whether quantum effects have any measurable effect on what the
brain does is not the question, the question is simply whether microtubules
are the lowest level processing elements of the brain. If they are, then
there are a whole lot more processors in the brain than previously thought.*

*Another point worth considering is that much of the brain's computation is
not taking place within the neurons but rather in the gaps between synapses,
and this computation happens chemically rather than electrically. There are
vastly more synapses than neurons, and computation within the synapses
happens at a much faster and more granular level than neuronal firings. It
is definitely the case that chemical-level computations take place with
elements that are many orders of magnitude smaller than neurons. This is
another case for the brain computing at a much lower level than is currently
thought.*

*In other words the resolution of computation in the human brain is still
unknown. We have several competing approximations but no final answer on
this. I do think however that evidence points to computation being much more
granular than we currently think.*

*In any case, I do agree with Kurzweil that at least it is definitely the
case that artificial computers will outnumber naturally occurring human
computers on this planet — it's just a question of when. In my view it will
take a little longer than he thinks: it is likely to happen after 100 to 200
years at the most.*

*There is another aspect of my thinking on this subject which I think may
throw a wrench in the works. I don't think that what we call "consciousness"
is something that can be synthesized. Humans appear to be conscious, but we
have no idea what that means yet. It is undeniable that we all have an
experience of being conscious, and this experience is mysterious. It is also
the case that at least so far, nobody has bult a software program or
hardware device that seems to be having this experience. We don't even know
how to test for consciousness in fact. For example, the much touted Turing
Test does not test consciousness, it tests humanlike intelligence. There
really isn't a test for consciousness yet. Devising one is an interesting an
important goal that we should perhaps be working on.*

*In my own view, consciousness is probably fundamental to the substrate of
the universe, like space, time and energy. We really don't know what space,
time and energy really are. We cannot actually measure them directly either.
All our measurements of space, time and energy are indirect — we measure
other things that imply that space, time and energy exist. Space, time and
energy are inferred by effects we observe on material things that we can
measure. I think the same may be true of consciousness. So the question is,
what are the measureable effects of consciousness? Well one candidate seems
to be the Double Slit experiment, which shows that the act of observation
causes the quantum wave function to collapse. Are there other effects we can
cite as evidence of consciousness?*

*I have recently been wondering how connected consciousness is to the
substrate of the universe we are in. If consciousness is a property of the
substrate, then it may be impossible to synthesize. For example, we never
synthesize space, time or energy — no matter what we do, we are simply using
the space, time and energy of the substrate that is this universe.*

*If this is the case, then creating consciousness is impossible. The best we
can do is somehow channel the consciousness that is already there in the
substrate of the universe. In fact, that may be what the human nervous
system does: it channels consciousness, much in the way that an electrical
circuit channels electricity. The reason that software programs will
probably not become conscious is that they are too many levels removed from
the substrate*."



*text 2:*

Individual consciousness is not enough: the case for virtual collectives
selves <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=2049>

 "Most individuals today do not have healthy selves — they have highly
delluded, unhealthy self-constructs. This in turn is reflected in the
higher-order self-constructs of the groups, organizations and communities we
build.

One of the most important things we can work on now is creating systems that
provide collectives — groups, organizations and communities — with
sophisticated, healthy, virtual selves. These virtual selves provide
collectives with a mirror of themselves. Having a mirror enables the members
of those systems to see the whole, and how they fit in. Once they can see
this they can then begin to adjust their own behavior to fit what the whole
is trying to do. This simple mirroring function can catalyze dramatic new
levels of self-organization and synchrony in what would otherwise be a
totally chaotic "crowd" of individual entities."

We continue excerpting from a brilliant
contribution<http://www.twine.com/item/11ktvpjz6-rl/how-to-build-the-global-mind>by
Nova Spivack,
*on how to build the global mind*.

These excerpts make a good case for the need of collective intersubjective
maturation and how we can facilitate its emergence.

*1. Individual Selves and their insufficient levels of integration*

"*The global superorganism is already conscious, in my opinion, but it has
not achieved very high resolution or unity. This is because most humans, and
most human groups and organizations, have only been able to achive the most
basic levels of consciousness themselves. Since humans, and groups of
humans, comprise the consciousness of the global superorganism, our
individual and collective conscious evolution is directly related to the
conscious evolution of the superorganism as a whole. This is why it is
important for individuals and groups to work on their own consciousnesses.
Consciousness is "there" as a basic property of the physical substrate, but
like mass or energy, it can be channelled and accumulated and shaped.
Currently the consciousness that is present in us as individuals, and in
groups of us, is at best, nascent and underdeveloped.*

*In our young, dualistic, materialistic, and externally-obsessed
civilization, we have made very little progress on working with
consciousness. Instead we have focused most or all of our energy on working
with certain other more material-seeming aspects of the substrate — space,
time and energy. In my opinion a civilization becomes fully mature when it
spends equal if not more time on the concsiousness dimension of the
substrate. That is something we are just beginning to work on, thanks to the
strangeness of quantum mechanics breaking our classical physical paradims
and forcing us to admit that consciousness might play a role in our reality.
*

*But there are ways to speed up the evolution of individual and collective
consciousness, and in doing so we can advance our civilization as a whole. I
have lately been writing and speaking about this in more detail.*

*On an individual level one way to rapidly develop our own consciousness is
the path of meditation and spirituality — this is most important and
effective. There may also be technological improvements, such as augmented
reality, or sensory augmentation, that can improve how we perceive, and what
we perceive. In the not too distant future we will probably have the
opportunity to dramatically improve the range and resolution of our sense
organs using computers or biological means. We may even develop new senses
that we cannot imagine yet. In addition, using the Internet for example, we
will be able to be aware of more things at once than ever before. But
ultimately, the scope of our individual consciousness has to develop on an
internal level in order to truly reach higher levels of resolution and
unity. Machine augmentation can help perhaps, but it is not a substitute for
actually increasing the capacity of our consciousnesses. For example, if we
use machines to get access to vastly more data, but our consciousnesses
remain at a relatively low-capacity level, we may not be able to integrate
or make use of all that new data anyway*."

*2. Providing collectives with healthy virtual selves*

"*On a collective level, there are also things we can do to make groups,
organizations and communities more conscious. In particular, we can build
systems that do for groups what the "self construct" does for individuals.*

*The self is an illusion. And that's good news. If it wasn't an illusion we
could never see through it and so for one thing spiritual enlightenment
would not be possible to achieve. Furthermore, if it wasn't an illusion we
could never hope to synthesize it for machines, or for large collectives.
The fact that "self" is an illusion is something that Buddhist,
neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists all seem to agree on. The self is
an illusion, a mere mental construct. But it's a very useful one, when
applied in the right way. Without some concept of self we humans would find
it difficult to communicate or even navigate down the street. Similarly,
without some concept of self groups, organizations and communities also
cannot function very productively.*

*The self construct provides an entity with a model of itself, and its
environment. This model includes what is taking place "inside" and what is
taking place "outside" what is considered to be self or "me." By creating
this artificial boundary, and modelling what is taking place on both sides
of the boundary, the self construct is able to measure and plan behavior,
and to enable a system to adjust and adapt to "itself" and the external
environment. Entities that have a self construct are able to behave far more
intelligently than those which do not. For example, consider the difference
between the intelligence of a dog and that of a human. Much of this is
really a difference in the sophistication of the self-constructs of these
two different species. Human selves are far more self-aware, introspective,
and sophisticated than that of dogs. They are equally conscious, but humans
have more developed self-constructs. This applies to simple AI programs as
well, and to collective intelligences such as workgroups, enterprises, and
online communities. The more sophisticated the self-construct, the smarter
the system can be.*

*The key to appropriate and effective application of the self-construct is
to develop a healthy self, rather than to eliminate the self entirely.
Eradication of the self is form of nihilism that leads to an inability to
function in the world. That is not something that Buddhist or
neuroscientists advocate. So what is a healthy self? In an individual, a
healthy self is a construct that accurately represents past, present and
projected future internal and external state, and that is highly self-aware,
rational but not overly so, adaptable, respectful of external systems and
other beings, and open to learning and changing to fit new situations. The
same is true for a healthy collective self. However, most individuals today
do not have healthy selves — they have highly delluded, unhealthy
self-constructs. This in turn is reflected in the higher-order
self-constructs of the groups, organizations and communities we build.*

*One of the most important things we can work on now is creating systems
that provide collectives — groups, organizations and communities — with
sophisticated, healthy, virtual selves. These virtual selves provide
collectives with a mirror of themselves. Having a mirror enables the members
of those systems to see the whole, and how they fit in. Once they can see
this they can then begin to adjust their own behavior to fit what the whole
is trying to do. This simple mirroring function can catalyze dramatic new
levels of self-organization and synchrony in what would otherwise be a
totally chaotic "crowd" of individual entities*."

*3. Three levels in the creation of healthy collective selves*

"*I think that collectives move through three levels of development:*

** Level 1: Crowds. *

*Crowds are collectives in which the individuals are not aware of the whole
and in which there is no unified sense of identity or purpose. Nevertheless
crowds do intelligent things. Consider for example, schools of fish, or
flocks of birds. There is no single leader, yet the individuals, by adapting
to what their nearby neighbors are doing, behave collectively as a single
entity of sorts. Crowds are amoebic entities that ooze around in a bloblike
fashion. They are not that different from physical models of gasses.*

** Level 2: Groups. *

*Groups are the next step up from crowds. Groups have some form of
structure, which usually includes a system for command and control. They are
more organized. Groups are capable of much more directed and intelligent
behaviors. Families, cities, workgroups, sports teams, armies, universities,
corporations, and nations are examples of groups. Most groups have
intelligences that are roughly similar to that of simple animals. They may
have a primitive sense of identity and self, and on the basis of that, they
are capable of planning and acting in a more coordinated fashion.*

** Level 3: Meta-Individuals. *

*The highest level of collective intelligence is the meta-individual. This
emerges when what was once a crowd of separate individuals, evolves to
become a new individual in its own right, and is faciliated by the formation
of a sophisticated meta-level self-construct for the collective. This
evolutionary leap is called a metasystem transition — the parts join
together to form a new higher-order whole that is made of the parts
themselves. This new whole resembles the parts, but transcends their
abilities. To evolve a collective to the level of being a true individual,
it has to have a well-designed nervous system, it has to have a collective
brain and mind, and most importantly it has to achieve a high-level of
collective consciousness. High level collective consciousness requires a
sophisticated collective self construct to serve as a catalyst. Fortunately,
this is something we can actually build, because as has been asserted
previously, self is an illusion, a consturct, and therefore selves can be
built, even for large collectives comprised of millions or billions of
members*."





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