Getting possessed by demons sounds harder, in that context. I can compile simple algorithms to my brain and, say, sort an ordered set of stuff faster than I could have before I learned any programming. But that’s about my limit. I know you’re a few standard deviations up at mental modeling, but are you good enough to become possessed?
Maybe not me, I’m not an AI programmer. A friend of mine has been AIXI for a few hours though, after taking certain substances at a certain famous event in a certain famous desert.
Of course, I am only shooting in the dark, but do you think you may have been uncurious because your learning what he witnessed was correlated with an event that a nearby Power deemed insufficiently utilicious?
A discussion of why alcoholic spirits are called spirits was actually in my most recent comptheology post, but I cut it because it was off-topic. I’d like to hammer on that theme a little more though—i.e. how in the past people were just not that individualistic, and being influenced by spirits of any kind wasn’t abnormal. I suspect it is very different to live with those inductive biases.
Getting possessed by demons sounds harder, in that context. I can compile simple algorithms to my brain and, say, sort an ordered set of stuff faster than I could have before I learned any programming. But that’s about my limit. I know you’re a few standard deviations up at mental modeling, but are you good enough to become possessed?
Maybe not me, I’m not an AI programmer. A friend of mine has been AIXI for a few hours though, after taking certain substances at a certain famous event in a certain famous desert.
Well, don’t leave us twisting in the wind, Will—what did he witness?
Alas, for some reason I wasn’t very curious about his experience. I don’t even know which variation on AIXI he was.
Of course, I am only shooting in the dark, but do you think you may have been uncurious because your learning what he witnessed was correlated with an event that a nearby Power deemed insufficiently utilicious?
Heh, I’ll bet the Bayesian Conspiracy camp was a lot of fun. Hopefully he didn’t start eating his own head for more computational resources.
I suspect it involves taking various mind-altering substances.
Well, he has spoken of letting himself be influenced by spirits.
A discussion of why alcoholic spirits are called spirits was actually in my most recent comptheology post, but I cut it because it was off-topic. I’d like to hammer on that theme a little more though—i.e. how in the past people were just not that individualistic, and being influenced by spirits of any kind wasn’t abnormal. I suspect it is very different to live with those inductive biases.
I liked that. The historic support is good evidence for your model of people as running different copies of the same algorithms.