The discontinuity paradox (extension of the godBoy argument)

[LCposter]

I was thinking about a popular argument for God - the creation argument. It is difficult to conceive of the universe having existed forever, and also hard to accept the universe spontaneously arising from nothing. I've seen a few threads where godBoy succintly states the paradox as 0 + 0 = 0 (i.e. to get something on the right, it seems you'd have to start with something on the left). Therefore a solution is to invoke a Creator, God, with the power to create something from nothing.

I was thinking that in the theory of evolution, there are several other examples of such "quantum leaps", or discontinuities, which seem difficult to explain. I certainly believe in evolution, but I must admit I'm at a bit of a loss to explain these without relying on some "outside help":

1) How does non-living matter spontaneously "come to life?" The theory I remeber was that that precursors of single-cell life (self-replicating strands of genetic material) were floating in "primordial soup" and were struck by lightning or some such thing. Can we today, in the lab, reproduce this and "spark" non-life into life?

2) How did consciousness (self-awareness) evolve? Presumably lower life is non-sentient while higher life (at least humans) are sentient. Where is the line and how was it crossed? If we understand sentience, can we create a sentient machine?

3) Similar to #2, how did intelligence evolve? Again, a litmus test could whether we can create an intelligent machine?

4) Presuming that we are not merely deterministic biochemical machines, how does free will develop? Can we create a machine with its own volition?

I think many of these concepts (for example, self-awareness, intelligence, volition) are intermingled, but in the metaphysical realm, these are often attributed to a soul. I was curious if there are purely scientific explanations to these "something from nothing" scenarios.

[FortunaMaximus]

Digression: 0 / 0 = ...

So does the essence of a broader solution mean that the value of something from nothing invokes an all-value entity or that an indeterminate God is something with multiple values? Religions and its multiplicity seem to imitate mathematical nature.

1) Not yet. But a reasonably competent programmer should be able to create a software model that can make this possible, with differing initial precursors. As to why? <shrugs> Because the tools are there. Would it be correct? Only within its own parameters. To use it as a proof or disproof for the origins of life might have a hint of fallacy.

2) Sentience is understood fairly well, I think, and it is possible to identify such evolution within a machine. It may not be until this happens OR is recognized and identified that we can reverse-engineer the process. I don't think it's an issue of forcing sentience through brute-force programming. Probably an unfair assumption to make, since I could be wrong.

3) Retaining and expanding data, the ability to carry memories coherently through generations, outliving death. Through literacy, story-telling, art. In this regard, it should be self-evident we already use machines as a natural part of our own evolution of intelligence in storing and accessing data, and accelerating the creation and processing of such.

4) Sentience allows for thinking free will in such a rationalization.

Is instinct, as seen in lower-order species within our biosphere, free will or preordained biological movement? At which point does an individual being become capable of free will? When it can think for itself?

That may be the defining state for which we can say a machine is truly sentient. When it can think for itself, and take actions that run contrary to what is expected of it and what it is told expressly not to do.

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I think many of these concepts (for example, self-awareness, intelligence, volition) are intermingled, but in the metaphysical realm, these are often attributed to a soul. I was curious if there are purely scientific explanations to these "something from nothing" scenarios.

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Fuzzy numbers? <shrugs again> Gestalt? I mean, broken down into basic numbers, an individual human being is a collection of numbers and interacting factors. I do not think it is a violation for a set of points to appear to have a sum greater than itself, however, the question of whether the sum is actually greater or a matter of perception...

Is the ability to say "I don't know, but maybe someone else does" a disproof of solipsism?

[Ben K]

Personally, I don't think there is a paradox with 0 + 0 = 0. It's a true statement but it doesn't apply to the universe. Reason being, to perform addition you require time (so that equation is really a function of time but that bit is unstated) and time is a property of the universe. No universe = no time. So the universe does indeed exist forever because forever is a word relating to time and you only get time once you have the universe. Still doesn't explain the starting mechanism of the universe though.

1) I find this question quite difficult because when trying to conceive of it, I put 'wanting to live' as a characteristic of the mud which plainly doesn't work. I can't work it through without ascribing some intelligence to the early beings in the process which must be very human of me because the religious have the same problem and decide that there was an intelligence.... and then lots of other characteristics too.

2) I think the evolution of self awareness is explained by science okay. Every living being that interacts with the world needs to have some sort of model of the world in it's mind. If not in a part of it's body called the brain (if it has one), then in DNA that provides the instructions for it to grow in an appropriate way, i.e. the DNA that survives is that which causes growth in a way which continues survival. For whatever reason, our brains have evolved a model (or brain structure) that includes us (and us thinking about ourselves) in it. Perhaps the average size of human tribe grew so the heirarchies became more complex so when chance gave an individual the ability to perceive himself in relation to everyone else, he had an advantage and was more successful, perhaps. Once you can include yourself in your perceptions of the world then you can include yourself thinking about yourself. Pure speculation about why but not implausible, I think.

3) Intelligence is the result of us wanting to measure the relative performance of human minds, akin to how did the centimetre evolve. It's also got variable definitions. Set up a test where Bob holds conversations with two people. One of those two people is actually a machine. Could Bob tell the difference? We've already made machines where the answer to that question is no. So we've already created machines with some measure of intelligence. I'm not sure if we could expand the machine to superceed the best human intelligence.

4) I think your presumption is false. You could create a machine that doesn't do what you want it to now so it appears to act on it's own violition, but really it's just acting out earlier instructions. I think we give the appearance of free will because the huge amount of information required to accurately model my next steps is unobtainable.

I think the idea of free will and machines with their own violition is the result of us having evolved fast ways of thinking about the world. There is an evolutionary advantage for the gazelle who sees a tiger and runs over the gazelle who sees a tiger and thinks about it's direction, speed, hunger or if it's going for someone else. Our model of the world allows us to think about ourselves and try to give a name to the 'body part' that is our personality - soul. But really it only exists in our imaginations.

[Piers]

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How does non-living matter spontaneously "come to life?"

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By random chance over billions of years in a suitable environment.

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How did consciousness (self-awareness) evolve?

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Evolved via natural selection, consciousness can be a survival advantage for a species.

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how did intelligence evolve

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Evolved via natural selection, intelligence can be a survival advantage for a species.

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Presuming that we are not merely deterministic biochemical machines, how does free will develop?

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Your initial assumption makes the question difficult to answer.

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Can we create a machine with its own volition?

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We will be able to.

[LCposter]

Thanks for some wonderful and very detailed responses.

I realize intelligence is such a vague construct that question #3 can't be answered as stated. The ability to hold a conversation indistinguishable from a human (Turing test) is one definition. From what I've read, no machine has successfully passed the Turing test to date, although it is certainly reasonable to believe one will do so in the future. However, there are many creatures (children, illiterate people, dolphins, chimps, etc.) which couldn't pass the Turing test but should still be considered intelligent, so no need to set the bar that high. Also, the Turing test fails to capture common elements of intelligence such as learning and creativity (e.g. composing a sonnet). I doubt this is a commonly accepted criteria in the AI community, but I think a sufficient condition for me would be if a computer could have a Eureka moment (i.e. a sudden flash of insight where it "discovers" something previously unknown and not immediately deducible from existing knowledge).

All the responses seem to question the presumption of free will. Is there room for free will in scientific theory? I guess almost by definition there isn't? Science looks for causality, while free will by its nature defies causality. I think to some extent the concept can be included in a scientific framework by invoking quantum randomness (e.g. uncertainty principle), nonlinear dynamics (chaos theory), maybe other mechanisms to introduce unpredictability into a causal system. Are there other means to reconcile science with free will (or at least our perceived notion of free will)?

[Ohgod]

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I realize intelligence is such a vague construct that question #3 can't be answered as stated. The ability to hold a conversation indistinguishable from a human (Turing test) is one definition. From what I've read, no machine has successfully passed the Turing test to date, although it is certainly reasonable to believe one will do so in the future. However, there are many creatures (children, illiterate people, dolphins, chimps, etc.) which couldn't pass the Turing test but should still be considered intelligent, so no need to set the bar that high. Also, the Turing test fails to capture common elements of intelligence such as learning and creativity (e.g. composing a sonnet). I doubt this is a commonly accepted criteria in the AI community, but I think a sufficient condition for me would be if a computer could have a Eureka moment (i.e. a sudden flash of insight where it "discovers" something previously unknown and not immediately deducible from existing knowledge).



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Just to respond to this part - as I understand it, this 'problem' stems from a misunderstanding of the Turing test. it is not a 'definition' of sentience, but a test for machine sentience - a vital distinction. Thus, the fact that an illiterate person could not pass it does not invalidate it, because it is a test that is sufficient, but not necessary.