Maximum Overdrive revisited: Could Machinery Already Have Basic Consciousness?

ChaoticOrder
reply to post by TwoTonTommy

 

That stones, at a very basic and primitive level, have some kind of sense of basic awareness

The problem with this concept becomes apparent when you break the stone up into smaller pieces. If you do so, have you "killed" the stone or merely created multiple new stones with some basic awareness? Clearly you have done neither, because the stone was never aware to begin with.

If you want to think along these lines then you'll eventually get down to smaller and smaller levels... and you'll end up asking whether dust particles have some awareness, which is clearly an absurd thing to believe. Stones and dust particles are not aware, and if you break them into smaller pieces they wont know.

edit on 14/12/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

Concerning the concept of stones or elements having consciousness, I would wager that the mass involved would affect the level of awareness. A few pebbles? Not much awarness. A 60-ton megalithic rock? Maybe. Mount Everest? A mass that size maybe has enough combined consciousness to develop a "spirit of the mountain" or some such thing.

Or take the Sun for instance. Composed of an astronomical mass of hydrogen & helium atoms. If I was the Sun, I think I would probably know it.

It could be related to the holographic theory. If you take one tiny part of a hologram, there isn't much of a clear picture there. But if you have a whole holographic plate, you have a sharp, clear, image. Maybe a low, fuzzy awareness turns into a larger one much as a bigger piece of the hologram will give you more information. Maybe lots of infinitesimal awareness can add up to something bigger. Small drops will fill a bucket.

Again, not my idea, per se; there are cultures in the world that believe in a living Earth. If Mother Earth is alive, then what are the cells?

reply to post by Brotherman


Yep, it's definitely a WTF moment here is another clip.
It's a boy car

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


That is not a "far out theory," to the contrary, it is an old thought that spans everything in the Universe. Basically, it deems everything having a consciousness--to use part of a Marxian phrase--according to its need. A rock is only a rock of course, but it has a level of consciousness within its being that is sufficient for being a rock.

Of course, that carries cleanly over into machines. So it comes as no surprise that as humans build these more complex machines, we tend to make them with a larger and larger level of consciousness. It takes no great leap of mind to understand that mankind is eventually going to outdo himself with his own machines. Eventually, we will have God in a desktop, you could say. Now, if that ain't scary, than I don't know what is. Man has outsmarted himself with his ingenuity. "The end is near," as some say. Once machines get the upper hand, and they will, mankind is doomed. So it is not mere science-fiction talk to understand humans playing God with themselves and losing. They should have been happy merely playing with themselves (in some fashion).

TwoTonTommy

coldkidc


Could be because changing a part in one area altered the system somehow in another area...after all even if it's not a directly related part, the whole system is all actually connected in one way or another

edit on 14-12-2013 by coldkidc because: (no reason given)

I think that's what I'm trying to examine - how far does the interconneced-ness go? In a connected system, you expect that kind of down-the-line cause-and-effect type stuff. But how much is the engine connected to the wheel seal? Or the brakes to the belts? It's interesting to try and figure out.

From an engineering perspective, the greatest source of damage is through heat stress (expansion/contraction) and mechanical vibration. That leads to to cracks forming and they get larger over time. Rubber seals fall apart, screws come loose. Panels start to bang.

In any vehicle, every system is creating mechanical vibrations; flow of fuel through pipes, flow of air through exhausts, spinning cooling fans, wheels bouncing on the roads, loose doors. Anything banging around creates sharp shock waves. Every component also has its own natural resonance frequency; panels, cylinders, passenger compartment. Whenever the source of input matches the resonance frequency, then energy builds up and can't escape. If you drive slowly, then these forces are low, but push things to the limit, and everything falls apart:

Examples are the Tacoma bridge failure (wind speed matched natural resonance frequency of the bridge)



Chinook helicopter resonance test gone wrong:



Helicopter shakes itself apart:

TwoTonTommy

I decided to experiment with a new strategy. I decided to sweet talk the truck. "I know you're feeling rough, I'm here to make it all better. It'll be all right." Like soothing an animal. And the jobs invariably go smoother.

I know it sounds crazy, but I'm just experimenting with the idea, and wonder if anyone else has any truck personality stories or the like that they would like to share.

I have a similar "relationship dynamic" with really intense and destructive thunderstorm wall systems and their straight-line winds that roll in from the west here in the US Midwest. The media panics and everyone shelters in place, but since the Memorial Day weekend of 2004, I've been calmly walking out onto my front door alcove, and gently confronting these storm systems (they last only about 10 minutes or so before they pass and their winds have done their damage) with exactly the kind of soothing energy that you're using to help make your job easier. And to date, the only incidents of wind blowing harder than a quick gust here and there were:

1. September 2008, when an outer band of Hurricane Ike snuck up on us (a sunny day, no less) while I was taking a nap (it was a Sunday afternoon) and it snapped many dozens of trees in the county park next door (just about every Sycamore Tree, sadly), flattened garages, barns, free standing trees for miles and miles, and left us with no power for three days.
   
2. Two years ago June (can't recall the exact date since it wasn't catastrophic enough to warrant recall), we had two big storm systems spaced by one storm-free day, and I decided to NOT confront the 2nd storm's wall and see what came of it. It was a complete mess, and my wife made me promise that I wouldn't do this again. And this is after years of her thinking that I was delusional for thinking that there might be something to this routine that spares us what the surrounding community repeatedly deals with when these systems come through each year.
   

I don't believe that storms, or trucks, have conscious awareness, but I've got 9 years of solid and consistent evidence that our neighborhood area is immune to the straight-line wind damage that has always been (and still is for every neighborhood and area that surrounds us) part of what it means to live in this part of the country. At least, it's immune if I do my quiet and soothing confrontation routine as the storms wall is passing though.

It sounds like you've discovered some sort of "connection" between the simple dynamics of fixing these trucks and your own ability to become an effective manager of those dynamics as a result of injecting a little tenderness into the overall confluence mixture. For whatever reason, it works, and that should be enough to convince you to keep it up. I still walk out on that alcove slab when these wall systems come in screaming, and so far, I've been successful in getting them to calm down enough to transform themselves from Doppler red and purple cells into gentle spring and summer rains with hardly a whisper of wind, even if it's only good for less than a quarter mile in radius surrounding my home. I don't know why it works, but it does, and that's good enough for me.

weirdguy
reply to post by Brotherman

 

Yep, it's definitely a WTF moment here is another clip.
It's a boy car

WTF? That car isn't even hot.

That guys does seem to have the right accent for being completely effed up in such a cartoon manner, though. At least they got that part of this stupid parody correct. TLC is like Comedy Central, only without the laugh track.

Brotherman
The thing about machines are, is that they break down and grow weaker after use compared to humans and other biological creatures our structures are designed to actually grow stronger with use

For all ages, I wish

how about US everything are made of atoms right ! and some dont believe in the spiritual realm either ...

of negative or positive thoughts alone can cause a butterfly like effect... on everything some religion believe in this ... spirts or possessed materials could be.. ( Steven Kings Christine for example ) but one thing i know there was a Study of ice crystals showing positive and negative effects from writing it on a jar to just wording from mouth .. showing change ...





or speaking Sweetly to a plant or Swearing to a plant cause positive n negative results

I understand what you mean either it some kind of force entity... we dont understand as of yet I assume some scientist think the same way as you do.

look at this ..

Shinto -- Kami

en.wikipedia.org...

Shinto teaches that everything contains a kami (神 "spiritual essence"?, commonly translated as god or spirit). Shinto's spirits are collectively called yaoyorozu no kami (八百万の神?), an expression literally meaning "eight million kami", but interpreted as meaning "myriad", although it can be translated as "many Kami". There is a phonetic variation kamu and a similar word among Ainu kamui. There is an analog "mi-koto".[9]
Kami is generally accepted to describe the innate supernatural force that is above the actions of man, the realm of the sacred, and is inclusive of gods, spirit figures, and human ancestors.[citation needed] All mythological creatures of the Japanese cultural tradition, of the Buddhistic tradition, Christian God, Hindu gods, Islamic Allah, various angels and demons of all faiths among others are considered Kami for the purpose of Shinto faith.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


There are a lot of cultures who believe everything is alive..after a fashion anyway.

The soil, the rocks, the air, the seas...everything has a spirit or a basic consciousness. Since vehicles are made of metal and plastic, and metal is derived from rocks and plastics from oil, it's alive.

The other belief is that when we curse or get angry with our machinery, we are transferring that negativity onto that vehicle or device and it goes wrong or breaks down when it gets..erm..all a little too much to take.

Who knows...science is close to claiming on the record that the entire Universe is an artificial construct, a 3d representation of a 2d or flat object...thinking about it, this is probably why we can only see about 5% of the Universe's matter...we're looking at the matter that makes up the 2D image, projected into a 3D Universe and wondering why we can only see 5% of it!

Eureka!

Your idea sounds like Gaia from Asimov's Foundation series. Pretty great series, especially if you read it in the Robots to Empire to Foundation order. It is definitely one of the best future history series out there.

Anyway, in the series, Gaia is populated entirely by people with mental powers. One of the powers of Gaia is that all of its inhabitants, from macro to micro scales, and all of its inanimate matter, from the stone to the water to the weather, share a common mind and sense of consciousness. I think I laid that out without giving away any big plot details.

Also, I have seen things like this happen too, especially in home ownership. Usually it's plumbing. Probably because I loathe doing plumbing, but am too cheap to pay someone to do it for me.

In the spring of 2011 it started with our bathtub not draining. We replaced part of the drain pipe to a junction, about seven feet. It worked great for a week or so, but then our main drains, both rainwater and sewer, were backing up into the basement. Yuck! We snaked them out and pulled out a bunch of roots. Put some root killer down there, and snaked it out again. Pulled out lots of dead roots. Thought our problem was solved! It worked great for a couple weeks, but the next big rain, the drains were backing up again! Turned out we collapsed a trap in the drain underneath the house. And when I say underneath the house, I mean buried down below the basement six feet in clay. That was a mess to repair. Water was flowing in from the sewers and the hydraulic pressure was pushing it back up.

About three months ago, the bathtub needed to be re-caulked. No big deal. A week following that, the water heater died and dumped out all over the floor. It sucked, but still a relatively easy fix. Of course, in changing that some of the pipes further down the line were weakened. So the next day was spent replacing about twenty-five feet of hot water pipe. One section would break, get replaced, then it would cascade further on down the line. Not fun!

And I just came to the realization that these problems have both started with the bathtub. I know it needs a refinishing, but now I'm extra scared to touch it!

Oh, and I thought of my own car one. We bought our second brand new car. I put about 8k miles on it and had a tire get blown out from a nail getting stuck in the sidewall. Replaced it with a new tire. About 2k miles later, I was coming home from downtown Detroit and hit a gnarly pothole. Blew out two more tires and destroyed the wheels on the passenger side. Had to buy two more tires, plus new wheels. I still have one more tire that hasn't been replaced.

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid

Had to buy two more tires, plus new wheels. I still have one more tire that hasn't been replaced.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear...you've done it now by saying that!

Prepare for tyre number four if i were you!

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


Thanks for the thread, TwoTonTommy! (I had to say that because I really wanted to type your name, it seemed like fun and it was!!) - but really, thanks for the interesting thread and theory.

I believe it is possible that a combination of factors compiled in the construction of a vehicle (or other material items) can lead to some level of personality... personality... could your idea be the proper definition of technicality?? After-all, people - when they are allowed to pick and choose - are attracted to objects they feel enhance their own personality. In order to enhance someone's personality, wouldn't an object need it's own level of uniqueness?

The biggest issue I see with the idea is the fact that any object, being considered for your theory, must possess some level of conscious awareness - being aware of how it is put together and how it appears.

It is quite obvious that all life forms are computers, with humans being the most highly advanced super-computers. We can be compared to machine in many ways. There are aspects of the human composition that display features we'd love to incorporate into advanced machinery & artificial intelligence.

One of the most obvious attributes we have is the ability to convert very common items (food/water) into a fuel source and the ability to efficiently dispose of the waste bi-products. It would be an incredible advancement to have a super-computing machine with the ability to identify material that it can use to convert into it's own fuel source, while producing 100% bio-degradable waste. Not only could this machine properly identify items for a fuel source, then process and dispose the items, it would be capable of producing the items itself - just as we do with farming. It could do all of these things as secondary objectives, with it's primary agendas being things like; reproduction, increasing it's intelligence and the intelligence of it's 'peers', and experiencing 'joy'.

When we reach a point where a machine capable of doing these things is developed, how do we know when the machine wakes up to it's own existence, no longer needing direction from it's creator? How could we ever truly know that it is indeed capable of being consciously aware and not just saying it is consciously aware?

I think what you have suggested in your Opening Post is something that could, someday, be recognized as a very primitive point in the evolution of the artificially intelligent/consciously aware super-machine.

Maybe there will be a day when humans no longer exist and machines rule. Maybe those machines will search for their own point of origin and maybe they will come to find what you have proposed is their own 'Missing Link'... I need to go watch some sci-fi now....

I'm a bit weird on this. I doubt there's any consciousness in machines or tools themselves (at least as far that nobody has successfully developed an advanced AI), but they are able to reflect that of those who use them. I dubbed the apparent phenomena "machine karma", as it has parallels to how typical karma supposedly works. It seems I have a good knack in this respect, as computers, printers, and other devices that are problematic for other people work just fine for me. Also had cars that while not anything special, they'd just keep going and going and going much like the Engergizer Bunny. But after having another family member look after them for whatever reason, there's suddenly a bunch of rust, engine breakdowns, etc. (And it doesn't seem like they did anything more careless or neglectful than I would.) Rather it's like they completely killed the vibe that was there when they got it.

But yeah, if there's any "conscious energy" in a manmade item, it's an extension of the person using it - not something otherwise inherent in the object itself. Usually when a person finds the right tool, whether it's a paintbrush, carving knife, tennis racket, or a vehicle, it definitely becomes treated as a part of oneself - so if there's any metaphysical aspect I don't see it being much different than the mental one.

Its been really interesting reading all the responses, a lot of different angles to look at. One thing I would bring up is, many seem to equate intelligence with conciousness. I don't necessarily think something like a stone would have a thought process or something. But maybe just a sense of vibration... just a feeling, stretched out over centuries.

Who knows what other dimensions of the universe our matter crosses into? What if on this dimension, its just a dumb rock, but in the next dimension up, outside of our sense of space & time, what if there is a bigger picture? What if a tree is an "unconscious" tree, but on the next dimension, it could speak to you? We are multi-dimensional beings, why not other forms of life?

Do I think a truck has consciousness? No, I do not. But it is an interesting question. I question the assumptions we bring to the table about the natural world. We think we know almost everything about it, where in fact, we are just scratching the surface of reality and missing some grand explanations in our scientific theories. We haven't figured it all out yet.

So treat it like it is: a mystery. We take for granted the mysterious nature of the world we live in. All caged up in our buildings.

Those who spend a lot of time in the natural world, outdoors, know there are many things we do not understand, and that life is an awesome mystery.

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


There are mundane reasons for things which seem so out of place.

For example, the truck that you fixed and comes back with un-discovered problem soon - the parts you changed modified the working of the truck. Old engines have clogged parts and carbon buildup inside. The old truck was surviving because the parts worked together though inefficiently. Now that harmony is disturbed as you changed some parts.

Old engines often prove very difficult to fix. I am no mechanic but I have owned enough cars to know this.

Today's cars and consumer products are complex, as these often contain computer chips and sensors. There is some amount of fault tolerance built into modern machines. This complexity can also seem like intelligence in a machine.

For those who haven't seen it...



It's entertaining to say the least, if you want to see someone get killed by a soda machine

SPOILER! Supposedly the machines are being controlled by an alien ship hiding behind a rogue comet that passes through our solar system, interesting timing with ISON and all

reply to post by TwoTonTommy


After working on helicopters and other electronic devices for 22+ years, i have noticed that some pieces of equipment do seem to have personalities. Not all of them but once in a while it seems they get a wild hair and start acting up, sometimes for no reason that I could find. Or they keep coming back to the shop. I have had equipment that wouldnt work for anyone but me and its problems would stop when I showed up to fix it.

reply to post by Konduit


If some race wanted this world, even after all we've done to it, i think it would be smart to use our machines against us because it would reduce us to the stone age basically because we wouldnt be able to use our technology any more.

Konduit
For those who haven't seen it...

It's entertaining to say the least, if you want to see someone get killed by a soda machine

SPOILER! Supposedly the machines are being controlled by an alien ship hiding behind a rogue comet that passes through our solar system, interesting timing with ISON and all

Haha, it's a funny movie. I loved it when I was a kid. Great soundtrack too!

lyvwyr70
reply to post by TwoTonTommy

 

After working on helicopters and other electronic devices for 22+ years, i have noticed that some pieces of equipment do seem to have personalities. Not all of them but once in a while it seems they get a wild hair and start acting up, sometimes for no reason that I could find. Or they keep coming back to the shop. I have had equipment that wouldnt work for anyone but me and its problems would stop when I showed up to fix it.

That's another phenomenon I've noticed - the truck that won't act up when I'm around. I've had customers get pretty upset, because they think I'm going to doubt them that "it was just acting up 5 minutes ago, and now its fine!". They definitely act like they have personalities sometimes.