Ideas by Alex Ahn

The fundamental problem with symbolic AI is that logic is bounded. There is a shape to any corpus of logical expressions that can be programmatically generated via following a set of manipulation rules. And due to the rigid manner in which the corpus evolves, the corpus is bound by its initial position and the rules of manipulation. This is a problem when the corpus has to choose the direction in which it wants to evolve itself further, because the corpus itself is a product of following a set of rigid manipulation rules. Any heuristic rule that can be devised is often not self-referential, and even if it is, it has a limited scope of self-inspection. This is because the heuristic rule itself must be a product of the same mechanism which generated the corpus of logical expressions: the rules of manipulation. And unfortunately, the rules of manipulation are often atomic, often akin to the fundamental laws of logic (e.g. modus ponens). I think it is often hard for people to imagine the s...

I find it distasteful that non-mathematicians think that Gödel's work introduces a level of subjectivity to mathematics. I agree that one can construct an arbitrary number of mathematical universes via selecting an arbitrary set of axioms. But I disagree that they are somehow all equivalent in value or structural consistency. I personally believe that there is one mathematical universe (or category of universes that are structurally equivalent via something like an isomorphism) that has the most structural consistency and can give the human mind the most insight. I personally believe that there are axioms that are representations of structural properties of physical reality. And I believe that there is a set of axioms that aligns perfectly with the physical universe, and subsequently allows the human mind to comprehend its logic to the fullest extent. I believe this because the way that the human mind understands logic is already a consequence of physical reality. Our ability to un...

 

Any time there is displacement in a system, it causes pressure to build on another component in the system. When a drop of water falls in a pond, the ripples spread out causing more displacement. Eventually the ripples reach the boundary of the pond and the waves crash on some shore. If society were managed in a way where every ripple would play out its natural course, it would lead to a lot of friction and violence. Perhaps this is the best way, since every witness of violence leaves a lasting impression and is a reminder as to the heavy price of mismanagement. Perhaps it is not, and it could be more effective to preemptively make space for such displacement, and things move in harmony all at once or not at all. This would require dual structures, or perhaps more than dual, where a movement on one side is mirrored in the other, such that any displacement that would ultimately reach the other side is taken into account in a way that there are no crashing waves. I think people who try t...

Virtual reality allows memories to be reused in new contexts. In specific, virtual reality allows repurposing of familiarity with sophisticated control systems. So long as the interface for the control system is kept the same, one can use it to control a remote device. Ideally, the device being controlled has the same interface for the control system, so that the device can control itself (e.g. a steering wheel for a car). If the controlling device and the controlled device share the same interface, then virtual reality enables a displacement of control that requires no further training. If someone knows how to use the device standalone, they know how to use the device to control another device. Control displacement allows a natural way to remotely control devices. For example, a person wearing a virtual reality headset in a Tesla car could control another Tesla car if the sensor data from the target vehicle is fused in the virtual world. While control displacement in the physical worl...

Traditionally, computers define logical operators on real values: AND 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 0 0 1 | 0 1 1 | 1 OR 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 1 0 1 | 1 1 1 | 1 XOR 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 1 0 1 | 1 1 1 | 0 I believe a similar construct can be made for complex values except that logical equivalency could maybe have two interpretations: either the magnitude is the core comparison value or the frequency (radian representation of the complex value in the unit circle) is the core comparison value. From a magnitude perspective, we could say that X AND Y for two complex values X and Y is itself if and only if both X and Y lie on the same circle.  In a sense, this is establishing a primitive group structure because the value of the operator depends on whether or not an item belongs in a set. Likewise, we could define an XOR operator the same way, just in the inverse, that both X and Y do not belong to the same circle. From a frequency perspective, we could say that X AND Y for two complex values X and Y is itself if and o...