Vreleksá

Aert · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 354

A few thoughts on the matter, didn't really know where else to put this.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28228492@N05/9224995361/

eldin raigmore · Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 8:27 pm Post subject:

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"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission

Aert · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 354

I've been thinking about the steps - or at least, some of the the stages - that are required to reach specific mental abilities, and I'm still unsure on quite a few of them (specifically with regard to their order, etc).

Because if you know what the order of progressively increasing mental capacities, then there are several directions you can take.

One is that when building an alien race, and are trying to figure out how to make them (ie. their thought processes) different, there are specific changes that you could make to the progression, eg. based on their anatomy or social structure, whereby you can design a more 'realistic' alien mental realm.

For example, if they collaborate on activities where both (mutually) benefit, but do not have a social organization that results in individuals caring about their social reputations, then either cooperative communication (the foundation of true language) is unlikely, or may be achieved a different way altogether.

Of course, all this assumes a social structure based on our own evolution, but by knowing this one can alter it to fit an alternative social structure, and see what happens.

Another direction you can go with this is in trying to create AI: if there is a progressive hierarchy upon which sentience is based, that means that without the fundamental mental abilities, sentience cannot occur (or if it can, only in a very different manner to our own). So in creating true AI, you would first need to create an intelligence with the previous stage of 'mental' abilities, etc. In this way, AI can (only?) be built from the ground up, basing more complex mental processes on simpler ones, in a type of designed emergent complexity.

One of my side projects at the moment is a philosophical study of mind and how it can be 'extended.' At its most basic, functional extension of the mind is simply learning, because learning expands the range of responses that the entity can produce to a situation. Beyond that is personal growth (essentially the same as learning except first requiring a personal identity), which leads to social growth. This argument is based on the functional extension of the body, being tool use, and even prosthetics (extending the functionality of a body, whether injured or not).

In this project, I'm arguing against the traditional view of the extended mind (Active Externalism, which argues that the things we use, especially information-carrying tools eg. computers and even a notepad, are extensions of our mind because we store information in them that would otherwise be stored in our minds).

So in the end I think I can use this in a few ways, but not immediately for any con-society I'd like to design, though possibly later on: I'm considering going from a medieval-technology level society in the first book or two - with one society speaking Śe'Ḱu and the other the Latinate language - to a near-future level society with the people speaking a descendant of Śe'Ḱu. Maybe I can incorporate some alien contact into the second, and figure out their abilities based on (probably an extension of) this hierarchy.

/end rambling

eldin raigmore · Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:35 pm Post subject:

1) Sounds like something I'd like to see done.
2) Sounds like something I wouldn't like to do myself.

Keep us all posted!
_________________
"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission

Aert · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 354

eldin raigmore · Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 1:04 am Post subject:

Well, I really liked the chart on Flickr.
_________________
"We're the healthiest horse in the glue factory" - Erskine Bowles, Co-Chairman of the deficit reduction commission