changed-my-mind.org

The idea that software is the approach to describe the sprits of old. (A very cybernetic idea). Further, the idea that by understanding software, by building ones own operating system, by getting a feel for the composability and harmony of software components, one get's to know intuitive truths about the mind. On the level that is below the user interace level and above the hardware level. But in the land in between, Minskie's middle. (The study that cognitive science in principle wants to be).

In this view, ricing, the act of maximizing ones interaction pleasure with ones computer, is a kind of meditation on the mental.

The ability to ride a bike cannot be described with text. It is the same for the abilities one grows from mediation.

Similarly, there are truths about what a good software interface is that is hard to approach via language only.

Other names: techno budhism,

The idea that mentality is a software where the datastructures are living, memetic entities. This means that thoughts, habbits, pieces of personalities should be seen as alive. Micheal Levin says it is a kind of substance chauvinism that we see thoughts, from their ephemeral nature as non-living.

But from a different perspective, ideas - their information content is immortal in the same sense that genes are immortal.

The relationship between life, knowledge, information, replicators, memes, genes is topic of Dawkins, Dennett, abstract replicator theory and is central for David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto, too.

Neuronal animism thus brings certain nuances regarding spirituality.

Animism is perhaps not the best model for physical reality, but it is perhaps the correct model of our model of the world.

The objects are not alive, but our objects, in our mentality are.

I am saying you look at an object and the representation you have, the concept of the object, the datastructure is alive. It sort of has goals, it wants be looked at, wants to be understood, wants to be given a name etc.

It is a datastructure of brain software made from (something like) neuronal activity and it is there to stay, similar to a virus.

Dennett said 'words are memes with a pronounciation'. And it is possible to give a spirit a name, thereby making it a thing.

• That Aristotle and Socrates would nowadays probably be philosophically inclined software engineers is a common idea I think.
• Cyber Animsim by Joscha Bach is a similar position. Software is spirit.

I was impressed early by Dan Dennetts Consiousness Explained (1991), it is still a relevant read with enormous breadth and depth.

Braitenberg sums the view up: The problem of 'consciousness' seems to go away almost entirely, if replaced with 'short term memory' or 'decision basis'.

Consciousness is not such a big deal for the biologist - how would it look if there is an evolved software running on brains for making decisions, including signaling things like pain or affection to conspecific?

From the inside, tt would look like this mentality of ours 🤷.

But theoretical physics is where the problem of qualia (the hard problem) becomes obvious; It seems to be a question similar to 'where does matter come from?'.

To me, Dennett establishes the nature of the mind as a software; 'Mentality' or the 'decision basis' is a virtual interface.

In software, the higher level user does not concern itself with the lower layer implementation. This 'hiding of details' is part of the concept of an 'abstraction barrier' in software design.

This 'not concerned with the how' is the main point of Dennett's 'user illusion'.

In this read, 'illusion' of illusionism is rather tame.

In any case, 'illusion' does not mean 'not real' - illusions are real, they are just a thing that does not actually have the explanation that it seems to have.

Dennett's favorite example of an abstraction barrier is the java virtual machine (JVM). The point of this software interface is to provide a set of affordances, a language, in terms of which an application can be specified.

The JVM in turn is implemented for many operating systems - each implementation is using a bespoke low level language for an operating system.

(In principle, the JVM could run on a toaster, if the toaster provides hardware instructions out of which you can make a Turing universal language.)

The benefit is that the same program can now run on all of those operating systems for which a JVM implementation exists.

In Von Neuman's days, the high level language was called short codes and the low level language long codes.

The beauty of programming is that it is possible to create a virtual machine in terms of long codes, which bottom out to machine instructions and physical circuits.

The virtual machine acts as if it was a machine that had the higher level instruction set.

Virtual means as if, this is the 'illusion' of 'illusionism' in my read.

Or mentality is a higher level software module that can act as if the objects and affordances of mentality exist - thoughts, perception of objects, motor programs feelings, access to long term memory, …

The conjecture that those should made from simpler things, i.e. they must be implemented by something that is not itself mind-stuff, is Dennetts idea of 'Darwinism' (Dennett 1995) .

Now I encountered The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch, and a topic are virtual worlds, computability, theoretical physics and such issues.

Apparently Turing universality means that all physical objects can be simulated by a universal computer.

I suppose it also means that all virtual machines create virtual worlds. Even a chess board is a virtual world.

Deutsch discusses funny things like

If you find yourself thinking in a world as simple as chess, you know that what you see is not all there is, because the rules of your world are not complicated enough to support minds.

Or any sufficiently understood magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Dennett said 'the next generation will have no problem to understand the concept of virtuality' and I think he was more or less right.

But the obvious problem is 'what is virtual?', 'what are virtual worlds?', 'how do they relate to the cosmos'?

How relatively trivial the first step of illusionism, and how profound this problem of virtual worlds in theoretical physics!

It is enough to give me a sense of vertigo.

Another perspective on the hard problem / qualia is the question of 'how does biological information processing relate to ethics?'.

Ethics is like a lense that makes the problem of qualia/ suffering come into focus.

There should be a theory of fun and suffering, that probably has to do with personhood, creativity and AGI.

During the time of changing my mind on these matters, I encountered Permutation City 2008 by Greg Egan, which explores the problem of virtual worlds.