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I think it's MUCH more naive to assume we are just a very advanced automaton trying to optimise a reward function.

What we don't know is infinitely larger than what we do know.



It seems logical we would be exactly that. This is how we would evolve during natural selection. It all makes sense. What reason would there be to be otherwise? It seems like human, wishful thinking to me that we are more than this. Since people want to think they are more than advanced automaton it is likely that this theory is based on imaginary foundation.


Would a human evolve in isolation? I think we are interconnected with many systems in unknowably complex ways.


The system is complex, but I would argue against it being unknowable. We do not know all the details right now, but it is possible we will know them in the future.


I'm reminded of the The Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

It's evidence that knowing some things requires not knowing other things.

It may not be possible to know everything.


> What we don't know is infinitely larger than what we do know.

Yes, but that unknown, by your own description is infinitely larger than us as individuals, who have a limited time and space of existence.

Unless you want to argue for a fictional contract between human existence and a "universal" or divine purpose (as most spiritual or religious systems do), the infinite unknowns don't pertain at all to the question of whether we are just very advanced automatons.


Where do you take that "infinitely" from? Why do you assume that what we don't know is actually "infinitely" larger?


Is a domain of unknowable unknowns not a sort of singularity (systems theory), and therefore a kind of infinite?


I didn't encounter that concept, so I don't know. That said, I'd argue these are unknown unknowns, but they're not unknowable in principle (except perhaps in areas where incompleteness theorem applies).


But then again how do we know they are unknown and not unknowable?

omg speaking of infinites... this rabbit hole may never have an end. LOL Cheers.


There are many physics ideas that are unknowable in principal due to the laws of nature. Back to the singularity.


The required knowledge to fully understand how our brains work is very obviously not infinite.




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