Does the sun go around the earth or does the earth go around the sun? You would surely answer that the earth goes around the sun - but why? Just as simply could we observe that the sun moves around the earth; based on plain observation it is a reasonable conclusion. In fact that conclusion is enough for most of us, we don’t need to think about it anymore because we have an explanation for it. That ‘model’ of how the sun works in relation to the earth, although today is considered incorrect, is sufficient for most everything the individual needs. One of the main purposes for a model is to predict something, and if the predictions prove to be accurate then the model is correct for all intents and purposes. The reason why the sun kept coming up every morning was because the sun was rotating around the earth, people had no need to consider that the sun was stationary and they were not.
What we call ‘objective’ is really just an approximation for how reality works. We have a finite memory storage and a finite computational limit; a better and better way to interpret reality. In order to describe physical systems we have a model called the standard model - describing fundamental forces in the universe. In reality there is no way to know if this is true, but what we do know is that it predicts the behavior of particles very well and it fits in with everything else we understand about the cosmos. Galileo was one of the first astronomers who stated that the earth moves around the sun. It was based on the assumption that other planets had similar physical laws to us. It would be a correct statement to say that the accepted assumptions of how our planet moved and how we compared to other planets did not align. If we believed other planets to have the similar properties to ours, then we assume that they would have a corresponding adherence to physical laws governing motion. Galileo realized that these two models of how things worked did not fit together, and in order to create a more accurate model of the universe, the earth could not be modeled as the center of our solar system.
In my last blog I discussed how I believed that the primary purpose of life was to continue living, to continue continuing. But why? Why do things have this property - this intrinsic will to survive and to live? It is because they have this property that they do survive; because they have the will to continue continuing that they survive. Life forms have the intrinsic will to survive because without it they would not exist - so they must. While I was pondering this question, the answer I came to seemed too simple. Things have the will to survive because they must - it need not be an external drive pushing them, it is a property that they have because they need it to live. The universe is chaotic and filled with disorder, yet somehow order emerges - stars, galaxies, earth, life, you and I. I believe that it all exists because it has the property to continue continuing - without that property it would cease to continue so everything that exists must have that property. In fact, any idea, any phenomenon that exists in any fashion from physical to abstract exists because it has the intrinsic property to continue existing. The beauty of life is evident in this, it is not by luck that we are here but by intelligence and structure - without this intelligent creation we would not be alive. We were not picked randomly, the process from which we were created is not a random one - it may involve elements of randomness but it is not itself random.
Prevailing models have this property, and this is where I will finally connect it to deep learning. The weak ones are weeded out, and they will continue to be weeded out as needed. Look at the human brain as a model, a tool used to predict, analyze, and describe behavior about the universe. If we really get down to it, the most important of those is to predict. We learn how to describe and analyze in order to be able to predict. Prediction has real value, things that have better prediction power are more adaptable and more able to survive. People more wired to predict what will happen have a better chance of survival - to continue continuing, so of course that will prevail. A property that we are given as humans is the gift of adaptability. Given many different situations, we are able to discern how to act intelligently.
No matter what religious or spiritual affiliation you claim - or the absence of one - the universe and we were created from a higher intelligence than ourselves. This is where ethical AI is a huge concern - we are trying to play god here. In my next blog I will talk more about the implications of this and what we can do to ensure ethical development of AI.