"organizes backwards from present" -- I like that.

Penrose does say "consciousness...is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known."

He does talk about consciousness in monkeys and dolphins so I would have to go back and read some gaps to see if he suggests animal consciousness is also part of the totality that is consciousness

And then there are some beachball type star shapes that almost have 5-fold symmetry. Not sure what the connection here is with AI.

He does state that it appears nature is not just optimizing for the individual atomic parts, but for the larger crystalline structures.

"Could a universe exist without any conscious inhabitants whatever? (Emperor's New Mind, Penrose)"

I skipped through all the math of the book to a section called "anthropic principle"

Apparently there is a strong and weak anthropic principle similar to strong and weak AI.

And then "strong determinism" which means "the entire history of the universe is fixed ...for all time."

And then Penrose quotes Einstein who wondered, "What I'm really interested in is whether God could have made the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all!"

Consumerism/Empire

"The appetite of the World-Market grew with what it fed on: the countries within the ring of ‘civilisation’ (that is, organised misery) were glutted with the abortions of the market, and force and fraud were used unsparingly to ‘open up’ countries outside that pale. This process of ‘opening up’ is a strange one to those who have read the professions of the men of that period and do not understand their practice; and perhaps shows us at its worst the great vice of the nineteenth century, the use of hypocrisy and cant to evade the responsibility of vicarious ferocity. When the civilised World-Market coveted a country not yet in its clutches, some transparent pretext was found—the suppression of a slavery different from and not so cruel as that of commerce; the pushing of a religion no longer believed in by its promoters; the ‘rescue’ of some desperado or homicidal madman whose misdeeds had got him into trouble amongst the natives of the ‘barbarous’ country—any stick, in short, which would beat the dog at all. Then some bold, unprincipled, ignorant adventurer was found (no difficult task in the days of competition), and he was bribed to ‘create a market’ by breaking up whatever traditional society there might be in the doomed country, and by destroying whatever leisure or pleasure he found there. He forced wares on the natives which they did not want, and took their natural products in ‘exchange,’ as this form of robbery was called, and thereby he ‘created new wants,’ to supply which (that is, to be allowed to live by their new masters) the hapless, helpless people had to sell themselves into the slavery of hopeless toil so that they might have something wherewith to purchase the nullities of ‘civilisation.’"

AI?

" the labour-saving machines? Yes, they were made to ‘save labour’ (or, to speak more plainly, the lives of men) on one piece of work in order that it might be expended—I will say wasted—on another, probably useless, piece of work. "

Exodus from cities to countryside:

"People flocked into the country villages, and, so to say, flung themselves upon the freed land like a wild beast upon his prey; and in a very little time the villages of England were more populous than they had been since the fourteenth century, and were still growing fast. Of course, this invasion of the country was awkward to deal with, and would have created much misery, if the folk had still been under the bondage of class monopoly. But as it was, things soon righted themselves. People found out what they were fit for, and gave up attempting to push themselves into occupations in which they must needs fail. "

Protest and journalism

“Meantime the town grew no quieter, and business came pretty much to an end. The newspapers—then, as always hitherto, almost entirely in the hands of the masters—clamoured to the Government for repressive measures

oh utopia, where the River Thames is so clean that it sparkles.

Always fun to jump in a river or a lake wherever one goes:

"he paddled away quietly as I peeled for my swim. As we went, I looked down on the water, and couldn’t help saying—

'How clear the water is this morning!'"

social justice

"Ah," said the old man, pointing to the Museum, "I have read books and papers in there, telling strange stories indeed of the dealings of civilisation (or organised misery) with 'non-civilisation'; from the time when the British Government deliberately sent blankets infected with small-pox as choice gifts to inconvenient tribes of Red-skins, to the time when Africa was infested by a man named Stanley, who—”

It looks like this is an 1890s dig at the "laptop class"..

From William Morris' "News from Nowhere"

"Though perhaps you do not know that in the nineteenth century Oxford and its less interesting sister Cambridge became definitely commercial. They (and especially Oxford) were the breeding places of a peculiar class of parasites, who called themselves cultivated people; they were indeed cynical enough, as the so-called educated classes of the day generally were; but they affected an exaggeration of cynicism in order that they might be thought knowing and worldly-wise. The rich middle classes (they had no relation with the working classes) treated them with the kind of contemptuous toleration with which a mediæval baron treated his jester; though it must be said that they were by no means so pleasant as the old jesters were, being, in fact, the bores of society. They were laughed at, despised—and paid. Which last was what they aimed at.”

I mean, the suspicious part of me says, yes. Also I think every book and video we consume is probably in a database :-D

I don't mean to be a troll, Liberty Gal, but are you sure about the database stuff? I was just in an liberal urban Texas bookstore and I was shocked at the amount of wall space dedicated to Christian literature. I mean even bookstores who are clearly idealogically left have a serious business interest in Christian lit and Bible sales... Or maybe this is just a Texas urban sample.

Oh I'm apologize. I will stop commenting on your posts. Working it out out loud here, don't mean to hurt people.

how do you deal with "wolves in sheep clothing" in this utopia.

the biggest trauma i've seen in a fellow man was caused by a very conservative church (men only allowed to teach) whose leadership ended up abusing young girls entrusted to their Sunday schools. that also ended up in gay acting children being bullied by the other children because the leadership condemned the gays of course.

the FBI was sent in to set things right. the balance of things is very hard to get right. not only should there be a separation of church and state, but a separation of religion from church smh !

Never underestimate the usefulness of a fellow who can figure out when a rolling piece of cake can mean deliverance from enemies:

Judges7:13 And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.7:14 And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.

It sounds like the parents and townspeople are sawing their own ways out of their driveways and down roads. I suppose people across creeks will have to wait for food and help if their bridges have washed out.

They are tough people there in general and they have a sense of community. They are usually used to a snowstorm or two knocking power out for a few days to 2 weeks. But this is a new experience having roads and bridges washed out, and maybe the car flooded.

There's no electricity and no cell service, so not much news is getting out.

Any help is welcome. I just talked to parents who are stuck without power and one way in and out of the town.

That is 100 miles north of Asheville. So there are 100s of miles of washed out roads and bridges and downed trees across roads.

Yikes Chris! That's dark. What probability is this

Interesting

Just read it. It tells us what to think about, right after talking about how to make requests. almost like a "you create your reality" type deal.

I wonder if other religions have the "ask and you shall receive" type thing.

so incredible. it's funny that humans built such a thing