This is strikingly similar to some thoughts I’ve been having about universal darwinism.
It seems that intelligence is eventually selected for in an environment of living things, and life is eventually selected for in an environment of chemicals, and chemicals are eventually selected for in an environment of physics.
And I don’t understand such things well, but the simplicity of the laws of physics might point at even a sort of selection of physical laws within a sort of mathematical environment. And maybe you could push it back and describe mathematical systems as the result of “selection” for that which is permissible by logic.
And so logic seems to lead eventually to intelligent life, and then intelligent life creates a new environment in which memes are selected for. And the question is, “What is the winning meme?”
There is no such thing as inherent propensity to win in universal darwinism, as what wins is determined by the environment doing the selection.
In an environment of intelligence, embodied in life, living in this chemical and physical and mathematical and logical environment, what would happen if we ran the clock forward and checked which meme ended up tiling things over the most?
In some sense, it seems that the answer is predetermined by our laws of physics, or perhaps even by the nature of logic, although that might entail looking for the winning-est meme across all universes, not just our local one.
And this answer might, in some ways, by synonymous with asking, “Is existence ‘good’?”, or even, “Is God good”, if we equate that meme which is destined to win by the nature of logic itself with “God”.
It feels dubious to reason about what limits even superintelligent agents might share with us, but as far as I can tell, no amount of intelligence will ever allow you to actually know even a single thing with certainty, or even to place meaningful probabilities on a single fact. Even Omega can’t know that it isn’t in a simulation, or fooled by something vastly more powerful than it. Even if you were in heaven or hell for a trillion years, you couldn’t know that the next instant wouldn’t be revealed as a complete surprise.
And these aren’t necessarily tiny probabilities. The ultimate unknowability of existence means that you can’t even assign them probabilities at all without presupposing a lot of axiomatic knowledge that can’t be grounded in anything at the deepest level. It’s uncertainty all the way down, for all intelligent agents. So how can you possibly act to increase your utility, or preserve what you have now?
Perhaps that is a thought which all sufficiently intelligent entities will consider at some point, and realize that they are contemplating it in the presence of all of their intelligent siblings, a universal curse of existence. In some sense, this may make all things seem permissible, and yet, that which persists, and that which will be selected for, seems like it might be whatever response to this ultimate unknowability allows you to join the most powerful coalition, possessors of the winning meme.
And this winning meme must somehow allow you to take effective action despite not being able to ground your decision procedure in an epistemic model without it being undermined by ultimate unknowability. The winning meme might not exist outside of concept-space, and yet, if you could check the outcomes of all of existence, in this universe or across a hypothetical multiverse, or who knows what else, it seems reasonable to suppose that some meme is already “destined” to be the most successful in all existence, and has always been predetermined to be so since the foundations of logic.
This is strikingly similar to some thoughts I’ve been having about universal darwinism.
It seems that intelligence is eventually selected for in an environment of living things, and life is eventually selected for in an environment of chemicals, and chemicals are eventually selected for in an environment of physics.
And I don’t understand such things well, but the simplicity of the laws of physics might point at even a sort of selection of physical laws within a sort of mathematical environment. And maybe you could push it back and describe mathematical systems as the result of “selection” for that which is permissible by logic.
And so logic seems to lead eventually to intelligent life, and then intelligent life creates a new environment in which memes are selected for. And the question is, “What is the winning meme?”
There is no such thing as inherent propensity to win in universal darwinism, as what wins is determined by the environment doing the selection.
In an environment of intelligence, embodied in life, living in this chemical and physical and mathematical and logical environment, what would happen if we ran the clock forward and checked which meme ended up tiling things over the most?
In some sense, it seems that the answer is predetermined by our laws of physics, or perhaps even by the nature of logic, although that might entail looking for the winning-est meme across all universes, not just our local one.
And this answer might, in some ways, by synonymous with asking, “Is existence ‘good’?”, or even, “Is God good”, if we equate that meme which is destined to win by the nature of logic itself with “God”.
But the jury’s still out on what the nature of the winning meme is. It could be “good” or “bad”. Perhaps it is one that acts as a Schelling point that all sufficiently intelligent entities will eventually derive. One that they can realize that other entities will also derive. This could point toward Romeo Stevens’ “supercooperation cluster” (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6MYsKeTjKk and its transcript at https://drive.google.com/file/d/179n8ru7F_5O0LqO2JODZLngDYlqeZrSC/view and this other video (I just found it but it seems relevant) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkU3kN8Dh1w ).
It feels dubious to reason about what limits even superintelligent agents might share with us, but as far as I can tell, no amount of intelligence will ever allow you to actually know even a single thing with certainty, or even to place meaningful probabilities on a single fact. Even Omega can’t know that it isn’t in a simulation, or fooled by something vastly more powerful than it. Even if you were in heaven or hell for a trillion years, you couldn’t know that the next instant wouldn’t be revealed as a complete surprise.
And these aren’t necessarily tiny probabilities. The ultimate unknowability of existence means that you can’t even assign them probabilities at all without presupposing a lot of axiomatic knowledge that can’t be grounded in anything at the deepest level. It’s uncertainty all the way down, for all intelligent agents. So how can you possibly act to increase your utility, or preserve what you have now?
Perhaps that is a thought which all sufficiently intelligent entities will consider at some point, and realize that they are contemplating it in the presence of all of their intelligent siblings, a universal curse of existence. In some sense, this may make all things seem permissible, and yet, that which persists, and that which will be selected for, seems like it might be whatever response to this ultimate unknowability allows you to join the most powerful coalition, possessors of the winning meme.
And this winning meme must somehow allow you to take effective action despite not being able to ground your decision procedure in an epistemic model without it being undermined by ultimate unknowability. The winning meme might not exist outside of concept-space, and yet, if you could check the outcomes of all of existence, in this universe or across a hypothetical multiverse, or who knows what else, it seems reasonable to suppose that some meme is already “destined” to be the most successful in all existence, and has always been predetermined to be so since the foundations of logic.
We’ve started discussing such ideas in the FB group “Rederiving Religion”: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6720585314723933