Drugs and Artificial Intelligence

[steaks!]

I'm not all-knowing when it comes to AI (or drugs, for that matter), but I was wondering if anyone could shed some light onto this...

The problem of AI is one that causes us to introspect towards our own cognitive processes in attempts to figure out exactly how it is that we are conscious. IMO, developing a true AI requires that we have a full understanding of human consciousness (unless of course, you were to create a conscious intelligence in an entirely different way, but when we have the human consciousness to sort of aim for, that seems to make more sense!), such that we can create an artificial working model.

Psychedelic drugs in particular seem to really shake one's foundation in terms of how one views one's self and one's relation to the outside. At the very least, psychedelics have profound potential towards psychotherapy, not to mention the arts, the sciences, spirituality and dare I say recreation. Simply put, psychedelic drugs - used properly - could prove to be invaluable tools to the human race.

I'll use LSD as an example here. In my experience, the acid headspace has proved to be one of emotional detachment. This has, in my earlier trips, provided a calm space in which I could integrate certain experiences that were - in a sober headspace - rather emotionally charged, and difficult to view in any rational sense. LSD helped me to overcome certain emotional challenges that otherwise caused significant distress. I would conclude that the nature of LSD's interactions with the mind include that of emotional detachment. Of course, this state can be achieved in other ways such as meditation and increasing emotional maturity.

The interesting fact here is that our brains are wired in such a way that a minuscule quantity of a chemical can bring about such a profound change in cognitive functioning. These chemicals seem to affect our minds at some of the deeper levels of our mind, and I would say that in moving towards a working model of the mind, these are things that should be thoroughly investigated.

Consider these drugs as tiny little pokers, which can potentially stimulate certain cognitive processes in a controlled way. Aside from the benefits to the person using the drug, observing these processes in a controlled setting could certainly shed light onto the nature of consciousness, could it not?

Has anybody heard of any research being done or of anything published pertaining to psychoactive drugs with respect to AI? If so, please share, and if not, why do you think that is?

Please let me know if I've posted this in the wrong forum, or done any other sort of bluelight faux-pas, as this is my first post Again, I claim no supreme knowledge pertaining to either AI or drugs, and this is all merely speculation on my part. If any or all of what I've said is nonsense, I certainly want to be corrected!

 

[nearjat]

Hello steaks! Welcome to bluelight, I can already tell you that you will be welcomed warmly amongst these peoples :D

I see what you're getting at, and I like it a lot. Actually reading this has, in a way, made me rethink how I see the idea of AI. I just didn't see it possible to put it bluntly.

Well when seeing it in your point of view, it seems like at LEAST a wonderful idea to entertain in science, haha.

 

[steaks!]

Thank you kindly nearjat! I'd peeked at bluelight a few times in the past, but more recently began reading more heavily and figured I'd start participating rather than just lurking

It's good to hear that you see this as an exciting idea to explore! I'm part of an AI/singularity mailing list via email, I'm going to post something similar (though to an AI audience, rather than a psychedelic audience). I'll let you know what sort of response I receive...I fear there are less open minds in that forum than in this!

 

[nearjat]

Haha, yes sir I know how you feel. It feels so open here, I actually got too used to to being able to literally speak my mind haha. Can't always do that in certain crowds

 

[euvit]

yep. drugs were put on the planet to help us evolve into gods children

 

[Delta-9-THC]

I think for AI we shouldn't really be aiming to recreate a human mind exactly because the foundation of our mind is based on the instincts of survival and procreation. A machine would have no concern for these things. We are goaded on by pleasure and displeasure. Programming this into a machine would make it highly defective.

I do think psychedelics might have to potential to give us some kind of insight into what kind of basic mental structure is required for something to be considered truly self aware and capable of high reasoning.

 

[steaks!]

I think for AI we shouldn't really be aiming to recreate a human mind exactly because the foundation of our mind is based on the instincts of survival and procreation. A machine would have no concern for these things. We are goaded on by pleasure and displeasure. Programming this into a machine would make it highly defective.

I do think psychedelics might have to potential to give us some kind of insight into what kind of basic mental structure is required for something to be considered truly self aware and capable of high reasoning.

I agree that an AI would certainly have different drives - instead of survival and procreation, perhaps it would be driven by the will to serve humans and to make itself more intelligent. But ultimately it would still be structured and function like a human brain in that it is driven towards certain behavioral attractors (I'm using a dynamic systems theory approach here). Think of the specifics of the drives as merely a parameter or variable. The rest of the framework is identical

To speculate further, think of the intricacy of many psychedelic visuals, not to mention common motifs between psychonauts from all over the world. Are things such as fractals, paisleys and double-helix patterns - just to name a few common visual themes that I've heard of - somehow built into the machinery of our minds, or are they build into the chemistry of the drug molecules? Or neither of these things? Why are these things shown to us, and where in our brain is the circuitry that is able to produce such intricate patterning?

One thought that's crossed my mind is that this intricate patterning is not created, rather psychedelics somehow amplify our brain's pattern recognition capabilities. We then look at things we see every day and see order and beautiful pattern where once there was only noise. If this is the case then studying these drugs I think would be crucial. Consider any scientific discourse - a hypothesis is formed by looking at raw data, recognizing a pattern, and then generalizing this pattern into some sort of rule which is then tested and verified or nullified through experiment. The sciences are again just one way that pattern recognition plays into our lives. Surely psychedelics could shed some light onto how our brains recognize patterns from noise.

For another fun example, have you ever been loaded in "silence", and realized that what you would normally filter out as background noise has become quite musical? Pattern recognition

Hah, I'll leave it there for now, I fear I'm rambling

 

[PsyGhost]

Artificial intelligence will be coded with language in the same manner that living organisms are coded with language. What needs to be created is artificial genetic language, and allow for such a system to create its own intelligence and consciousness.

 

[steaks!]

allow for such a system to create its own intelligence and consciousness.

Do you mean to create a set of rules (a language) and sort of set a system in motion? It would take a very, very long time for any such system to develop into any kind of intelligence, and there would be no way to tell in advance whether that specific language would result in intelligence at all.

Certainly an artificial language is necessary for artificial intelligence, and basing it off of the concept of genetics seems like a good way to go, considering that's how we work. But I think it would be much wiser to use what we know about the nature of consciousness and intelligence in order to construct an artificial intelligence, rather than create an arbitrary set of initial conditions with a set of rules and hope that it results in consciousness. This is where psychedelics come into play, as they have the potential to show us more about the nature of consciousness.

Does anyone have an ideas/speculations in terms of how to investigate these things?

One rather obvious method would be to track the drug molecules as they move through the brain, noting which areas of the brain are effected. Then through introspective use of the drug, try to refine the effects of the drug into simple terms. To reuse my previous example, I would say that one of the effects of LSD is a state of emotional detachment. Through more controlled studies, perhaps more accurate descriptions of the drugs effects on our minds could be defined, and subsequently linked to physical phenomena within the brain.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

Steaks:

Yes, psychedelics most definitely tap into the innate understanding of geometry and patterns which are inherent in our brains visual processing(this also occurs with other senses, particularly sound). It looses the floodgates/removes the filter on our visual processing and the result is this infinite cascade of color and shape.


We would likely have to develop something in equal complexity if it's perceptive abilities are to be as flexible as a human's are.

 

[azzazza !?]

How could one program true infinity in an algorithm without the machine getting stuck in the paradox that creates? it cannot make the qualitative leap; leaving the infinite intact as infinite. self-counsciousness relies on such a paradox: at any given time, being conscious of itself as "i am this"; the observer aware of this fact escapes its own determination in its positing itself. any self-reference (eg.: I ) implies its own denial. when you take this denial itself as its locus you a have double negation; thus entering the paradox. in words better then mine "Dasein walks the boundary of the boundless."

 

[azzazza !?]

as for language: genetic language is in se a syntactical language. it creates a brain, not a mind. computers can handle syntax provided good programming. Semantics on the other hand is a whole different ballpark. semantics being reference of meaning imply incorporation of same problem as above through the concept of idea. if you say "cat" means this thing, you need the idea of "what is the essence of cat". syntax implies having it refer to a particular cat. while this can be extended by algorithms devised to recognize 4-legs, tail, fur, type of ears...; it can seemingly approach the idea of cat. but this can however never reach true semantics. the idea "cat" as a symbol is a perfect, infinite ideal. it incorporates the self-reference of the consciousness discerning the idea in a particular cat. its difficult to explain this accuratly without resorting to jargon, but take for instance "cat-like; feline": its reference is of a more poetic nature. it refers into itself through the self-referring consciousness entertaining it. feline as an idea is independant of its infinite possible expressions, though at the same time it (the idea) would not exist without an expression of it. here we see this qualitative leap again from a number of expressions to an infinite meaning, and/or the other way around. as you can see, reference as meaning implies again a denial of the particular.

you'd have to solve the mind-brain problem first. which is more of the same problem: leap leap leap. creating a genetics that would create a conscious intelligence would imply putting evolution in an algorithm. what drives evolution? survival. what is survival? not dieing. what is death? self-negation.

[leaps off singing and dancing naked, disappearing over the horizon]

 

[Delta-9-THC]

Maybe I should have tempered that infinity with a "practically". I am not sure but it seems there would be a limited (but extremely large) amount of permutations that can be generated by our minds. What can be generated in a vacuum of stimulus is determined and limited by our visual processing abilities.

It also depends on whether you mean infinite in scale (both + and - infinity) or infinite in variety. We already have computers that can generate fractals and simulate infinite scale.

 

[steaks!]

Steaks:

Yes, psychedelics most definitely tap into the innate understanding of geometry and patterns which are inherent in our brains visual processing(this also occurs with other senses, particularly sound). It looses the floodgates/removes the filter on our visual processing and the result is this infinite cascade of color and shape.


We would likely have to develop something in equal complexity if it's perceptive abilities are to be as flexible as a human's are.

Yessir! The filters are removed, and what is normally dismissed as insignificant noise is perceived for what it is - infinitely complex order/patterning. Indeed an AI would have to have quite complex and as you say flexible perceptive abilities in order to approach a human-like functionality. Perhaps in this case psychedelics show us that this will be more of a challenge than we may have thought. It is not enough for an AI to be able to recognize discrete objects, it must be able to (through the administration or cyber-drugs or otherwise) remove its filters and see the beautiful flowing patterns amongst what it - for everyday purposes - filters out as noise.

I may have echoed much of what you said, but the long and short of it is that I concur

How could one program true infinity in an algorithm without the machine getting stuck in the paradox that creates? it cannot make the qualitative leap; leaving the infinite intact as infinite. self-counsciousness relies on such a paradox: at any given time, being conscious of itself as "i am this"; the observer aware of this fact escapes its own determination in its positing itself. any self-reference (eg.: I ) implies its own denial. when you take this denial itself as its locus you a have double negation; thus entering the paradox. in words better then mine "Dasein walks the boundary of the boundless."

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at here, but I would mention that in the history of any scientific discourse the phenomenon of a paradox has never meant a dead-end. As Gary Zukav put it, "Whenever we bump into the limits of our self-imposed cognitive reality, the result is always paradox." ... it takes what he calls a beginner's mind to create a new paradigm in which the phenomenon thought to be paradoxical fits.

Forgive me for not really commenting on what you've said, I'm just not quite sure what you mean. Where does infinity come into play here? (heh, loaded question)

 

[azzazza !?]

^( at delta9) why would you wanna do that ? as humans we are mysteriously equipped to grasp the idea of infinity. i see no reason why that cannot be visualized by us? fractals are infinite because they are recursively defined; ie. the formula defines itself in terms of itself. yes you can let a computer build them. but thats not a true fractal. you have to instruct it to stop after x iterations of the calculation or it'll go on processing forever. a visual of which we are self-conscious can perfectly be infinite. its simply an iteration of itself through itself. consciousness, mysterious consciousness can grasp this through its self-denial, effectively being (infinitly processing) the infinite recursion while at the same time overseeing this process, determine it to be infinite, and take it in as a whole.

 

[steaks!]

heh, didn't even see your last 2 posts while writing that last one/doing other things..

azzazza, i would argue that the concept "cat" contained within a mind is the sum total of all of this mind's experiences relating to cats. certain experiences have more weight for various reasons (emotional intensity, temporal proximity to name a couple). ideas such as "feline" i would say are created via cognitive processes and are removed from direct experience. granted, i may still be confused - you've run conceptual circles around my tired little mind

 

[steaks!]

^( at delta9) consciousness, mysterious consciousness can grasp this through its self-denial, effectively being (infinitly processing) the infinite recursion while at the same time overseeing this process, determine it to be infinite, and take it in as a whole.

perhaps this can be explained by the fact that we have 2 hemispheres? one being the infinite recursion, while the other (thought be some to be the seat of the ego) doing the overseeing.

 

[Delta-9-THC]

Azzaazza:

Do what? Not sure what you mean by that. I was simply just questioning whether infinity actually exists within our minds or whether, barring outside stimuli to add more variety, our brain might have a finite amount of forms inherent within it. We definitely have the ability to produce infinite scale/repetition though.

"a visual of which we are self-conscious can perfectly be infinite. its simply an iteration of itself through itself. consciousness, mysterious consciousness can grasp this through its self-denial, effectively being (infinitly processing) the infinite recursion while at the same time overseeing this process, determine it to be infinite, and take it in as a whole."

Can you explain this a little better? Why does the infinite require a conscious observer to be truly infinite? I am having a little difficulty understanding the syntax you are using. Elaborate on the self denial you mention. Sorry just having a little difficulty pinpointing precisely what you mean.

 

[azzazza !?]

Forgive me for not really commenting on what you've said, I'm just not quite sure what you mean. Where does infinity come into play here? (heh, loaded question)

well, self-counsciousness implies being conscious of oneself. the minute consciousness takes itself as its object, infinity manifests: an infinitly dense point of self and negation of that self. the seer always escapes what is seen. you must escape the objectifying the subject in order to see it happen. consciousness is conscious of consciousness. it is a recursive definition. it can be hard to grasp since we're usually stuck on taking everything as an object within our consciousness so much we start doing it to ourself too .

or: subjectivity is: to be subject of an object. fill subjectivity itself in as this object. you get a subject that is subject of a subject that is subject of a subject that is subject of a subject that is subject of a subject that is subject to......


and yes, paradoxes can be solved through paradigm shifts. but such a shift is a shift within consciousness. this one is the mother of all paradoxes, namely the one that constitutes consciousness. Untieing this paradox implies the end of self-consciousness and paradoxically (lol) the beginning of human beings as objects; robots unconscious of themselves.

 

[azzazza !?]

Azzaazza:

Can you explain this a little better? Why does the infinite require a conscious observer to be truly infinite? I am having a little difficulty understanding the syntax you are using. Elaborate on the self denial you mention. Sorry just having a little difficulty pinpointing precisely what you mean.

it does not require a conscious observer per se. a computer running an infinte calculation such as a fractal is a true infinity. but it is stuck in it. a computer has to arbitrarily stop its calculation, and make do with the approximation it calculated, if it has to use this infinite calculation in further calculation. A human being on the other hand can escape this iteration of a formula that has itself in its definition. the human can see it as an infinite iteration; he sees that it is an infinity. he does not have to calculate it. he makes a qualitative leap from infinite iteration to infinity as a whole, he can symbolize it and put it to use as an infinity. escaping the process requires denying it, taking a distance from it, arbitarly stopping it, on its own accord. how and why he can do it and does it is the mystery. he can see past it, as if he has acces to the eternal in which the infinity is completed as an infinity. he can see it in its being an infinity.