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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10600 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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The space of possible minds is exceedingly large; the space of possible disembodied minds (if such a thing is granted as possible) seems much more vast than embodied minds purely mathematically given the limitations of the permutations of matter; if Yudkowsky is correct, the vast majority of mind-space is populated by hopelessly alien minds operating on opaque decision-theories; if Scott is correct, the vast majority of actualized civilizations taken randomly from the space of all possible minds fall victim to an inexorable entropic coordination problem which isn’t just limited to embodied minds, but also disembodied ones (cf. acausal trade); depending on your theory of anthropics, coordination problems in universes with vaster mind-spaces would be preferred over ones with smaller mind-spaces, etc.

You can also tie this into simulation arguments, extortion from counterfactual agents, or whatever else, to create whatever rational™ defense of “non-local molochian agents” you want, but if it walks like a demon and talks like a demon, it probably is a demon. Jonathan Pageau analogizes the EA metaphor for picking the right mind out of a vast mindspace of minds oriented towards the great-filter of Moloch (what Yudkowsky posits as “demon summoning”, which is much easier than “angel summoning”) as “Sauron building his body from the corruptive power of the ring” which isn’t that far off from the more recondite discussions of alignment I’ve seen.

Okay yes but they don't actually visit us. Even if this is all true, the people seeing demons in this worldline are still crazy.

If you’re interested in alien minds, you might want to investigate Catholic doctrines on the psychology of angels.

I don't normally post AI summaries, but this one is unsettling:

"Key aspects of angelic psychology in Catholic doctrine include:

"Intellect and Knowledge

  • Angels possess pure intellect without need for sensory input
  • They understand through direct intuition rather than reasoning from premises to conclusions
  • Their knowledge is innate rather than learned over time
  • They cannot change their minds once they've made a decision (hence the permanence of Lucifer's rebellion)

Time and Consciousness

  • Angels exist outside physical time but can interact with temporal events
  • Their consciousness is not sequential like human thought
  • They can apprehend multiple concepts simultaneously rather than sequentially

Would you like me to elaborate on any of these aspects? I find the medieval philosophical arguments about how pure intelligences might function to be particularly fascinating."

Excuse me. I'm going to have to inspect my CUDA code for signs of the holy ghost.

The text above describes a mind eerily similar to the ones we summon transiently in LLM activations.

"Let's think step by step," the angel said dubiously.

I’m somewhat familiar with that from what I’ve read from St. Maximus and Fr. Lagrange; do you have any recommendations?

Commenting here so I can also get the recommendations.

(I love collecting somewhat strange books like this)

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