What is "Mind?"

The insight isn't on AlphaZero's part, it just didn't discount or abandon any line or approach because it had the cycles necessary to evaluate their utility.

isn't it a bit obvious that the universe doesn't really care what we think reality is? in fact, aren't we the only ones that care about what we think?

but the universe was around long before there was a consciousness to be awed by it... somehow it got along quiet well without observers.

First Principle of Biocentrism: What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness. An external reality, if it existed, would by definition have to exist in space. But this is meaningless, because space and time are not absolute realities, but rather tools of the mind

Second Principle of Biocentrism: Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and cannot be divorced from one another.

Third Principle of Biocentrism: The behavior of subatomic particles, indeed all particles and objects, is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves.

Fourth Principle of Biocentrism: Without consciousness, matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state.

Fifth Principle of Biocentrism: The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around. The universe is simply the complete spatio-temporal logic of the self.

Sixth Principle of Biocentrism: Time does not have a real existence outside of animal sense perception. It is the process by which we perceive changes in the universe.

Seventh Principle of Biocentrism: Space, like time, is not an object or a thing. Space is another form of our understanding and does not have an independent reality. We carry space and time around with us like turtles with shells. Thus there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.

Classic Sciences's Answers to Basic Questions

How did the Big Bang happen?
Unknown

What was the Big Bang?
Unknown

What, if anything, existed before the Big Bang?
Unknown

What is the nature of dark energy, the dominant entity of the universe?
Unknown

What is the nature of dark matter, the second most prevalent entity?
Unknown

How did life arise?
Unknown

How did consciousness arise?
Unknown

What is the fate of the universe, for example, will it keep expanding?
Seemingly yes.

Why are the constants the way they are?
Unknown

Why are there exactly four forces?
Unknown

Is life further experienced after one's body dies?
Unknown

Which book provides the best scientific answers?
There is no single book.

Okay so what can science tell us? A lot - libraries full of knowledge. All of it has to do with classifications and sub-classifications of all manner of objects, living and non-living, and categorizations of their properties ...

So those who ask science to provide the ultimate answers or to explain the fundamentals of existence are looking in the wrong place - it's like asking particle physics to evaluate art. Scientists do not admit to this, however.

Biocentrism's Take on the Cosmos

There is no separate physical universe outside of life and consciousness. Nothing is real that is not perceived. There was never a time when an external, dumb, physical universe existed, or that life sprang randomly from it at a later date. Space and time exist only as constructs of the mind, as tools of perception. Experiments in which the observer influences the outcome are easily explainable by the inter-relatedness of consciousness and the physical universe. Neither nature nor mind is unreal, both are correlative.

Ed Hartouni wrote: This begs the question how "complexity" is selected in evolution. Kauffmann offered a possible explanation of this using the notion of critical behavior, which generalizes to all of the different scales of biological systems. Perhaps this is fruitful way forward.

Your second bullet is problematic because it reflects a particular outcome of those several billion years. The whole question of "self-awareness" in complex brains is still debated, that is, are there other animals who exhibit "self-awareness" and how would we tell if we can't ask them a question they can answer, e.g. "are you self-aware?" Some brain anatomies are more "complex" than human brains, does that mean that those animals are more "conscious"? have more "mind"?

While it is plausible that there are other animals that are self-aware, there is no consensus on just what this means.

Finally, can the self-awareness of an individual species in the environment scale to the entire environment? that is, is the environment now "self-aware."

Ed Hartouni wrote: But we have your complexity argument, which produces a hypothesis, and that is the central idea of neural network based experiments. The behavior of a neural network, subject to various training experiences, cannot be reduced to some closed form calculation. (Thus we say we don't know how AlphaZero came to the basis of its chess decisions, for example). But the hypothesis is that sufficiently complex neural networks will exhibit behavior that cannot a priori be derived from the functions of the agents of that network.

AlphaZero can certainly be considered a study on such emergent behaviors.

Ed Hartouni wrote: I'm not sure that this is correct, either. And we do define mind. The problem with the definitions could be that they produce testable hypothesis, and when we test these we find them insufficient. In the long run I believe we'll sort out what parts of "mind" are "real" and what are a part of our perception of mind, these two things are quite dissimilar. I think evolution theory can help here, but not without understanding complexity in an evolutionary setting.

While philosophy can help sharpen questions, the empirical nature of "mind" suggests that there are no philosophical principles that constrain the possible explanations. Unfortunately, most arguments that attempt to impose constraints appeal to our own experience of mind, and not to some fundamental understanding of mind. But it's always good to have smart people thinking about these interesting questions.

Ed Hartouni wrote: Computers are not biological systems, and have some advantages for the study of complexity of the brain. First and foremost, computers do not have to survive, so all the evolutionary machinery required to do that is not necessary. Freed from these constraints it is possible to make mechanical (electro-mechanical) systems that explore many of these ideas of complexity as it is expressed in behavior. Behavior is how we know that anyone else posses mind, or any other being. We generalize our subjective experience assuming that others have much the same, though we know in extreme cases this is not true. The subjective experience of a schizophrenic would seem quite different based on their behavior.

Ed Hartouni wrote:
a) This is based on your time estimate for achieving such a thing. In the short run, AlphaZero architectures might provide essential capability to figure out a way through the impending short term challenges that our "biological imperatives" are causing.

b) However we should note that it is not the goal of "modern" AI to produce conscious machines, just intelligent machines, and that goes to part of the definition of mind, that is, can you separate intelligence from mind?

c) What happens to mind in the limit of our separating things out of its definition?

d) But I also agree with you that those challenges might overwhelm us and the planet before we get answers to any of these questions.

Ed: The glasses extend the ability of your current eyes allowing you an experience of the world.

Duck: The mind nor the brain is not the real source of intelligence .......

Tom: The bottom line is that your thoughts have power.

Finally, can the self-awareness of an individual species in the environment scale to the entire environment? that is, is the environment now "self-aware."