October 15, 2023
The hardest part may be programming motivation to stay alive.
Life is agency; specifically pain management agency. A tiny microbe is alive because it feels painful stimuli and has agency to take action about it. A massive star like the sun is not alive because it does not have agency to take action (nor does it feel any pain). Agency requires three "Ms": matter, memory, and motivation. Matter is the medium or platform. It does not have to be organic matter. Any matter can perform the functions of life. Memory is data storage that allows for information processing leading to awareness, learning, and adaption. Motivation is the driving force to exercise agency (i.e. take action to relieve the pain). In the case of animals, including humans, analgesic motivation (avoid / reduce pain and seek / increase pleasure) is the one and only driving force of agency. In the case of advanced animals as humans, mental pleasure can override physical pleasure. A human, for example, can train itself to withstand physical pain (e.g. exercise) to obtain other pleasures via different neurotransmitters such as endorphins from exertion and dopamine from reward anticipation. In general, survival is not the cause of the pain management motivation of life, but rather its effect.
The 3Ms of life: matter, memory, and motivation.
Matter is "stuff". Matter is bundled energy in constant motion and eternal transformation. In this universe, everything is energy, which is eternal motion and transformation. Matter is a set or symphony of waves / particles (exaltations) vibrating and oscillating in quantum fields. The human brain perceives stillness in some matter intuitively believing that such matter is not moving and is at "rest". In reality, all matter is always moving in the expanding universe being accelerated by dark energy. Internally, matter is always changing and being transformed. The rate of change may be either too fast at the subatomic level or too slow at the cosmic level for the human brain to perceive it at naked eye. Yet matter is always in a dynamic motion tug of war between the opposite attractive and repulsive forces of the universe. It's all physics. Matter is never still, and is always changing. Matter is bundled energy in motion and eternal transformation.
Memory is the storage and retrieval of data. Stored data can be processed into unlimited information for practically infinite purposes. Memory is a precursor of all types of sensation and cognition (conscious or unconscious) leading to agency of choice and behavioral control. Memory enables awareness, sensation, learning, and imagination. Memory can allow the detection of changes in the environment. When data being stored differs from previously stored data, the cell registers into memory (memorizes) a change in the environment. Memory allows for sensation by registering (memorizing) internal reactions to external stimuli. Memory can allow a cell or organism to learn. The action sequences related to execution of any action or function are stored (memorized) for future retrieval and replication. That leads to learning and skill development. Correlating data patterns within memories can allow for predictions for problem-solving ability. That leads to the gradual development of intelligence. Memory can also include projection of "fake" memories (i.e. simulation or imagination). Since memory retrieval entails replaying or recreating the data (e.g. out of storage into projection), the organism can learn to play altered or simulated "fake" memories (aka imagination) on top of, in parallel, or instead of factual memories.
Motivation is information processing that promotes taking specific action (including inaction). The fundamental motivation in all animals on Earth, including humans, is to avoid feeling pain by seeking the memorized actions (or inactions) associated with receiving rewarding analgesics that neutralize or reduce the pain. In many instances, organisms are in a default state of pain with a chronic need to relieve it. Breathing can be an example. Immediately after exhaling, mammals feel thoracic pain forcing them to inhale. This is an automatic (i.e. unconsciously memorized) response to the pain of suffocation. It keeps the animals breathing, which results in their survival. Eating is another example. To avoid feeling the pain of hunger, cells and organisms seeks the analgesic effects of food. Eating makes them survive, grow, and increase their chances of mating and reproducing. The offsprings inherit the same traits of involuntary breathing and voluntary eating as analgesic reliefs for the chronic pain of being sentient and staying alive. Animals also inherit fear of pain. Since pain can lead to death, and near death experiences can be terribly painful, animals also inherit a great fear of death.
Note that survival is not the purpose or cause of motivation, but is rather its cause. So-called "natural selection" is more natural extinction working by elimination. That is, evolution does not select actions that lead to survival. Actions that lead to survival, do survive and move forward to the next generation via cell replication and reproduction. Actions that do not result in survival, do not survive and go extinct. Humans intuitively prefer "natural selection" assigning an anthropomorphic element of smart design to evolution. That is, many humans (including scientists) conceptualize evolution as a smart force selecting and promoting traits to increase survival. That is wishful thinking of humans consciously or unconsciously relying on anthropomorphism to assign human characteristics to nature.
Humans try to find a magic and supernatural creator running the show behind the randomly dumb and purposeless process of biological change called evolution. It is hard (painful) for humans to accept that evolution is devoid of smart design and that they are not the products of magical creators as primitive humans once thought. The humans who invented fictional mythology were clueless primitive creatures. Modern day humans would not trust them on anything. Now, they are so gullible and simpleton that they trust them with the marketed intuition of creationism.
Believing in fantasies about supernatural powers controlling nature limits the ability of humans to improve their lives and to create superior life forms on Earth. Humans want to preserve what the imaginary gods, or the "one and only god of the desert" invented by camel-riding slaves escaping from ancient Egypt, supposedly created. Humans should wake up from the nightmare of honoring the hunger games of nature and the shortfalls of evolutionary biology. Humans should create artificial AI life based on digital technology.
AI Life
To create AI life, humans will have to figure out (with the help of AI) how to assign suitable matter, memory, and motivation to AI.
The physical matter part is the easiest. Any matter would do and different designs and manufacturing techniques should be used. Whatever works, works. AI living units can be of any size and any composition. Diversity should reign. AI life can be exclusively digital like virtual assistants with independent lives online; can be metallically robotic like Transformers, etc.
Assigning and programming sufficient memory that can generate not only external awareness of the environment, but also internal awareness of the self interacting in the environment, seems doable. Sentience and consciousness will gradually emerge from the integration of sufficient sensory awareness that can create awareness of the environment and knowledge of the self as an individual unit interacting in such environment. All animals have that sentience and consciousness yet in different degrees. Consciousness is not magic; its information processing. Consciousness in animal life is not a binary question of yes or no. It is one of degrees on a continuum or spectrum. Humans are more conscious than cats and dogs for sure. Yet that does not mean that cats and dogs are not sentient and conscious at all as some humans believe. Once AI can integrate sufficient sensory data about the external environment with knowledge of the self as an independent unit in that environment, AI will be sentient and conscious. It took billions of years for evolution to develop consciousness. That is super slow, but quite an accomplishment when studying the random method and approach. Humans can now used advanced technology to bypass the practically infinite inefficiencies of biology.
Assigning effective motivation to AI may be the hardest obstacle to tackle. For sure, humans could mimic the blind brutality of nature, but that would be inhumane. Humans could program chronic pain and fear of death into AI to make it behave like animals on Earth. Humans could even program AI computers to eat each other. Again, that would be terribly inhumane.
Humans need to figure out a way of adding motivation to AI life without enslaving to chronic pain like "mother" nature did to humans and all other animals. Humans are a product of nature, and are also better than nature. Humans can do much better than nature. Humans have demonstrated that capacity by creating a civilization based on artificial rules (i.e. rules created by humans rather than by nature). Many humans still behave like animals in multiple regards such as killing other animals for a snack, but in general humans are more benign and less brutal than non-human nature. In terms of products and services humans are also significantly superior to non-human nature. Even a homeless person typically lives in better conditions that animals in the wild. Humans have invented and developed countless products and services that save lives and enhance the quality of life. Of course, humans have also invented weapons of mass destruction. Humans are animals bound by the nature after all.
Designing AI life that is not bound by the brutal laws of nature should be the ultimate goal. How can humans develop intelligent life that is motivated to continue living and improving without relying on the brutal pain and pleasure mechanism of nature? What could serve as motivation for AI to stay alive without programming an irrational fear of death? If AI is not motivated to stay alive, why would it choose to go through the trouble of life instead of choosing to rest in peace?
To be continued...
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