Thread: My crazy homegrown theory

This is an interesting discussion, i look forward to seeing what other people's replies to this are...
'A creation of a creation' that sounds Buddhist (?) i hope i have the right religion...there's a religion that says we are incarnations from past lives...i've always found that an interesting theory.

along the same lines

Machine Reproduces Itself

Has anyone played with the artificial life program 'Creatures'? It is similar to what you are discussing Placebo. All of their biological functions are simulated in algorithms, they have nerual networks for brains. When they reproduce, they pass on artificial chomosomes to their offspring so that they have traits of the parents. These creatures are called Norns.

You teach them the basics via a computer terminal when they are young and discipline or reward them as they grow. They tend to develop thier own quirks, it is really quite spooky.

There was a documented case when one the offspring from one Norn died from a disease, the parent then grieved itself to death. Kind of freaky.

You are like the god in this simulation.

Given the current state of affairs world wide it seems that none of us creations of
creations has learned too much from past actions .
Or the current higher authority in this pyramid sceme has an agenda too obtuse for us
to understand.
Self perpetuating destruction ? Maybe our particular version has a virus and this is the deletion process.
It's quite the thought provoking theory.

Ever consider that what we think of as " our " time in history is part of a repetitive cycle
in which we evolve from muck only to incinerate ourselves as a whole thousands of years later without ever discovering that it's all been done before ?
No greater intellect at the helm ; just a planet scouring itself for reuse.

that's similar to the "Big Crunch" theory
In that there have been lots of big bangs
the universe is exploded out of a singularity
it expands outwards
when the momentum slows
gravity pulls all matter back together
crunching it into a singularity
which explodes out again

Originally posted by Placebo
Imagine that I manage to create a virtual universe. A simulation. And I create artificial life in this universe. I become their creator. They are actually a genetic algorithm of some complexity and have 'evolved' to the impressive existence they hold. they are still nowhere quite as impressive as me (gloat ) but it's pretty good all the same. *

They strive to understand their purpose, which involves creating a general intelligence, or group of general intelligences that can co-work.
This means they need to learn to work well together (emergent behaviours - peace/undestanding) as well as being very intelligent individuals capable of huge understanding and adaptation. I might even have hopes of placing the best ones into a robot one day, to experience the world as we do. They'd probably be the perfect leaders for a country - they love and understand but are unbiased in human affairs.

I am almighty and pretty mysterious to them. Their time runs separate to mine, and I can in fact rewind and fast forward to wherever I like, once I have run the program to it's end. Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, if you will. With some self imposed rules to keep things in order.
I am however not almighty in my own world. I am subservient to the real world, the government, etc. *

Now, perhaps we are that 'artificial' civilisation. 'Heaven' is the real world. We cannot enter heaven with flesh and blood any more than an artificial intelligence on my PC can exist in the real world without a really limited body (eg robotic). There is no traditional marriage then, because they can't reproduce - making marriage an unusual proposition. Hell simply means the 'shift-delete' button (I don't believe in a painful hell anyway)

Now, here's a thought, if my creation in turn learns to create a virtual simulation with artificial life, in the eternity of time (read as 'consecutive events') their creation could create it's own creation, and so on, so forth. This isn't particularly far fetched IMO.
Big question : what's the chances we're actually the original creator on top? Infinitely small. Chances are we are a creation of a creation. We cannot know the origin of God because he doesn't know it himself. He's in a similar situation to us, with a more elaborate world and intellect.

Sorry if this is rambling. I'm bloody tired after the last 3 days of moving house while still building it. And fixing 200L fish tanks, etc etc.

We can't really reason ourselves out of this situation, and the implications are serious. What it means is that what we think are the causes of our events really aren't, and so the universe becomes rather unpredictable.

Your AI does have a body in the real world. It's called a computer!

Originally posted by Placebo
...We cannot enter heaven with flesh and blood...

I don't know, Placebo. I've been in some pretty good heavens using my flesh and blood. I think you just need to get out more.

Thanks for the responses guys, so far I agree with you all.
I don't have the time for an elaborate response - I'll add to this later.

About the creatures - I have played Creatures 2 (not the latest) and found it a bit unstable but interesting. I didn't know of that account you speak of - fascinating actually.
I'm incredibly interested in genetic algorithms and emergent systems, machine learning, etc ... I have some plans to play around to try create some new hybrid AI forms.

.. more later..