GEB 2

Minds, Monkeys and Socialization

Edward Yukowski mentioned a study of a monkey tribe as part of an explanation for the arousal of intelligence - namely, that the run-away process of social competition is what drove is to have bigger, better brains.

Well, had an interesting connection with this - If we take a Strange Loop to entail the way in which a formal, rigid system - a non-sentient system, we might say - become intelligent- and we take that a Strange Loop can be fundamentally a self-referential device - a means for a system to generate meaning by referencing itself in the way that language derives meaning from the world around it - then wouldn't a strange loop for intelligence be a self-referential intelligence? (Bam! I think, therefore I am - took on a whole new meaning). To put it another way, one having to do with social monkeys - we take the ability to model another intelligence - developed for use in a competitive social environment - and turn it to modeling ourselves...

Yeah, that sounds about right.

In other thought, I've often remarked that something about LGBT people is attractive to me, something that seems common in all of them but uncommon in most other people. I used to think that it was the act of saying so strongly (due to the ressistance) I am This! - that what I found attractive was that decisive act (and what then comes from it). Now perhaps I wonder if what I find attractive in that is the greater presence of consciousness itself; that greater degree of self-awareness that comes from such an assertion? I'll have to think on this more, but the thought presented itself to me and I didn't want to turn it away.

GEB 1

Ok - First off, I am looking at restarting this, and I'll explain all when I get there.

But for now, gotta get this idea out:

So, GEB is talking about strange loops, self-referential statements, etc. There's a better way to put that that I think might come out the next couple of thoughts, but:

Branch 1: So, imagine you're learning a new language from someone you have no common language with. They can reference things around them, utter a sound, and from context, you can reasonably assume that the sound means the referenced thing. The sounds of "apple" and the context of the fruit connect to give the symbol "apple" meaning.

Branch 2: One of the problems of AI (AFIAK), is that, while we can make systems that can figure out relations between symbols, it can be hard to argue that the system then knows what a symbol means. Indeed; I think we can see this in certain mathematics, where we can do symbol manipulation on a set of symbols and rules, with no care as to what the symbols correspond to. They're meaningless in their lack of reference.

So the problem is then - how do we get meaning into symbols? More - how do we get meaning into symbols without an outside reference - because was can build a system of symbols and rules with no outside; ie, the Universe.

But! And here, I think, might be a crux point of GEB: A Godel strange loop is a symbol manipulation that references the system it is in, perhaps in the way that the word "apple" references a fruit, or the word "English" references the very system it belongs too.

Basically, with that example, without a reality "apple" will forever remain a meaningless symbol, which "English", because it references that which it is a part of, will always have meaning.

I'm thinking this might give new meaning to "I think, therefore I am", but I'm not sure yet.