[pcp-discuss:] New member: Menno Rubingh

From: Cliff Joslyn (joslyn@lanl.gov)
Date: Wed Oct 25 2000 - 18:15:27 BST

  • Next message: Menno RUBINGH: "[pcp-discuss:] Thinking as evolution on behaviours"

    >Subject: request subscription to PCP-discuss mailing list
    >From: "Menno RUBINGH" <rubingh@delftnet.nl>
    >Date: Mon, 23 Oct 100 20:34:40 +0200 (MET DST)
    >To: owner-pcp-discuss@listman.lanl.gov
    >Cc: rubingh@delftnet.nl
    >
    >L.S.,
    >
    > Email address: rubingh@delftnet.nl
    > Name: Menno Rubingh
    > URL of home page (if any): http://www.rubinghscience.org
    > Postal address: Doelenstraat 62, 2611 NV Delft, Netherlands
    > Phone: +31 15 2146915 (answering machine backup)
    > Affiliations: At the moment I'm just a private person.
    >
    > How did you hear about PCP?
    >
    > I found the website 'http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be' by searching on
    > the ''WWW'' for people/groups who are doing work/research on AI,
    > cybernetics, and so on.
    >
    > Please take at least one page to describe your work
    > and how it might relate to PCP:
    >
    > At least one page !! well well. All right.
    >
    > I'm a 33-year old scientific programmer, graduated 1991 as an
    > electrical engineer, who gradually during the last few years has
    > discovered that he's highly interested in AI and in the
    > philosophical
    > implications of it.
    >
    > My webpage 'http://www.rubinghscience.org/philos' contains a
    > description of my outlook on life and on AI -- and by extension
    > on how
    > I look at the possibility of intelligent artificial life forms
    > arising. I am a programmer and technologist and
    > philosophically-inclined person who, having had a look at your
    > Principia Cybernetica website, cannot help seeing huge overlaps
    > between the ideas and approach-followed on the Pr.Cyb. website
    > and his
    > own ideas.
    >
    > I still am definitely hugely new and uninformed about your
    > Pr.Cyb. project, but regarding the overlaps, I definitely simply
    > have to try to make contact and to find out to what degree it is
    > possible to construct a mutually interesting and beneficial
    > communication and exchange of ideas.
    >
    > Of course :-):-) I have my own little humble programming project
    > concerned with creating a self-aware AI: see
    > 'http://www.rubinghscience.org/aiclub'. But recently I realized
    > that really au fond, ''self-aware'' AI already exists all around
    > us -- ''self-aware'' is just our way of labelling/interpreting
    > things. A thermostat in a heater is already ''self-aware''.
    > Therefore creating a ''self-aware'' intelligent AI is (IMO) only
    > a question/matter of reaching sufficient complexity. A process
    > that has reached sufficient complexity AND that has the
    > propensity to adapt itself into a form that tries to optimize its
    > own chances of survival, IMO (almost?) automatically will be both
    > ''self-aware'' and intelligent in a ''human''-like way.
    >
    > So I think that the ''automatic'' drive towards survival is very
    > important in the study/problem-field of ''AI''. IMO, all
    > self-replicating entities that survive, therefore have wired-in (are
    > programmed such that they have) a ''will'' to survive -- otherwise
    > they wouldn't survive. Anything that doesn't have this
    > will/drive to
    > survive is eradicated.
    >
    > The above obviously overlaps hugely with the philosophical
    > questions of e.g.: what's the ''meaning'' of life ? ; and : what
    > is the optimal ''ethics'' for any entity ? Reading the Pr.Cyb.
    > website, I'm delighted to find that the approach in it like my
    > own approach basically tries to find answers to these ''age-old''
    > philosophical questions in evolutionary and Darwinistic
    > considerations. Ethics is what is optimal behaviour for any
    > entity that optimally serves its own survival. This is not
    > specific to humans, but is general for any kind of entity and any
    > kind of ''system'' -- including robots, ant colonies, and
    > Martians. :-) IMO, the huge advantage of this approach is that
    > does not base itself on ''moral'' values, and neither on any
    > needed a-priori belief about what is the ''Goal'' in/of life. In
    > contrast, IMO it's in a way plausible to say that in this
    > ''Darwinistic'' view the question of ''Goal'' or ''Moral values''
    > is entirely not an issue.
    >
    > Well, this maybe has given you some impression of ''where I come
    > from''. I'm with interest looking forward to your reply.
    >
    >Best regards,
    >
    >Ir. Menno Rubingh,
    > Scientific programmer, Software designer, & Software documentation writer
    >Doelenstraat 62, 2611 NV Delft, Netherlands
    >phone +31 15 2146915 (answering machine backup)
    >email rubingh@delftnet.nl
    >http://www.rubinghscience.org/

    ----
    O------------------------------------------------------------------------>
    | Cliff Joslyn, Member of the Technical Staff (Cybernetician at Large)
    | Distributed Knowledge Systems and Modeling Team
    | Modeling, Algorithms, and Informatics Group (CCS-3)
    | Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop B265, Los Alamos NM 87545 USA
    | joslyn@lanl.gov     http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~joslyn     (505) 667-9096
    V All the world is biscuit-shaped. . .
    

    ======================================== Posting to pcp-discuss@lanl.gov from Cliff Joslyn <joslyn@lanl.gov>



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