Interesting ideas. Would you expand on your last point? We're you meaning an artificial consciousness becomes so good at interpreting the things around it that the consciousness itself evaporates?
Sure. So consciousness is maybe very loosely the ability for an entity to model and interact with its surroundings. On the low end we have a rock. It is the product of its surroundings and therefore you could say it has some kind of model, but no interaction. Then you have a worm, it can do some basic tasks and has a kind of plan. Humans are further along. But at some point if an entity has such a rich model of its surroundings and can control it so effectively, the line between it and its surroundings starts to blur. It’s able to effect more nuanced change at a greater and greater distance. It is less and less surprised by new events. And I guess in this way I imagine that it starts to merge with its surroundings.
Thinking about entropy, a single drop of dye in a glass is very high entropy, but the drop is very confined to a particular place. This is like the rock. Then as it swirls around the complexity increases, even though entropy is decreasing. This high complexity is like us. But as the drop of dye becomes totally intermixed the entropy is at its lowest, but the dye is evenly mixed through the entire solution. It stops making sense to ask “where is the dye?” because it is everywhere.
zwkrt|3 years ago
Thinking about entropy, a single drop of dye in a glass is very high entropy, but the drop is very confined to a particular place. This is like the rock. Then as it swirls around the complexity increases, even though entropy is decreasing. This high complexity is like us. But as the drop of dye becomes totally intermixed the entropy is at its lowest, but the dye is evenly mixed through the entire solution. It stops making sense to ask “where is the dye?” because it is everywhere.