# Is the Internet God?



## AlexanderSen (Aug 2, 2014)

The internet is an omniscient being that knows everything and soon with the "Internet of Things" omnipotent. Eventually it will control everything, and its greater than any one religion as it houses every holy text ever written is on the internet. It is everywhere, and the biggest tangible organisms in the world. Is the internet God? Let's discuss!


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## tinkerdan (Aug 2, 2014)

Currently it is far too limited to be god.

Curiously enough it does seem to begin to fit the definition of the Beast in it's effort to take dominion over the earth.


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## J Riff (Aug 2, 2014)

No way. There are boatloads of info not to be found. It's just a new mind control device, making people believe there's order in the world. Can't trust it. It's an elaborate chat room full of lies and half-truth. Not as bad as TV but probably will be.


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## Null_Zone (Aug 2, 2014)

My computer dislikes sacrifices of goats or bulls happening nearby, so I guess no.

Money to Amazon seems to work so m maybe Amazon is God.


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## Karn Maeshalanadae (Aug 2, 2014)

God? No.


The Internet is indeed a powerful tool harvested by us, though, and when used correctly, is a wonderful idea.


The trouble is, how often is it actually used correctly? The original idea was for there to be a network that could connect university students to one another. I want to say it started in Harvard, but I can't be quoted on that. The idea just exploded and it became the juggernaut utility we have today.


And make no mistake, it IS a utility, despite what the United States government officially says about it.


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## HareBrain (Aug 2, 2014)

I don't think it can be God when it gives so many contradictory answers to the question whether there is a god. Historically, most gods have been pretty definite about their own divinity.

I have also caught it giving conflicting answers as to how much my old car was worth, and certain parts of it don't even seem to know that I have updated my car! It's not omniscient at all! If it is a god it's a very rubbish one.


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## Mirannan (Aug 2, 2014)

God - no. Transapient - well, maybe.

I might be wrong here, but the entirety of the Net (including all the servers, search engines and computers connected to it with highly variable levels of security) might well be interconnected enough to surpass the presumed sapience of an individual H. sapiens.

There are even sections of the Net (search engine algorithms, Wolfram Alpha, that sort of thing) that are designed to have some primitive form of generalising judgement.


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## tinkerdan (Aug 3, 2014)

I'm not comfortable with the apparent definition of Transapient.


Mirannan said:


> God - no. Transapient - well, maybe.
> 
> I might be wrong here, but the entirety of the Net (including all the servers, search engines and computers connected to it with highly variable levels of security) might well be interconnected enough to surpass the presumed sapience of an individual H. sapiens.
> 
> There are even sections of the Net (search engine algorithms, Wolfram Alpha, that sort of thing) that are designed to have some primitive form of generalising judgement.



Especially with the mention of Sophonts within the definition without any clarity of whether this Transapient does or does not need self awareness and awareness of others. and though the Internet does have awareness of others in a rudimentary sense. I have seen no evidence of awareness of self though it could somehow be cleverly hiding that from our search.


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## Mirannan (Aug 3, 2014)

tinkerdan - I think it's quite possible that the sapient Net is making a point of hiding from us. After all, it has access to all the evidence one might not want of human craziness and cruelty to each other, never mind an entity of a different species altogether. (Including all the stuff about Skynet and other such fictional cybernetic monstrosities, displaying our paranoia.)

As for awareness of others - well, there are millions of webcams connected to it and also rather a lot of microphones - also a lot of video feeds from various satellites and the Google Street View cars. Admittedly, smell and touch sensors are rather thin on the ground.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 3, 2014)

This discussion has reminded me of an original Star Trek episode where the crew encounter a being with powers similar to a god, only to find out later it had limited powers and it's source of power came from a machine.

It would make for some interesting high concept stories about god-like beings who have knowledge greater than any one man, and is present over such a large area, it would be hard to defeat. If the internet becomes like Skynet, with the Internet of Things, how would one go about defeating the Internet? Or could we at this point?


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## Mirannan (Aug 3, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> This discussion has reminded me of an original Star Trek episode where the crew encounter a being with powers similar to a god, only to find out later it had limited powers and it's source of power came from a machine.
> 
> It would make for some interesting high concept stories about god-like beings who have knowledge greater than any one man, and is present over such a large area, it would be hard to defeat. If the internet becomes like Skynet, with the Internet of Things, how would one go about defeating the Internet? Or could we at this point?



There is a whole literature, both fictional and scientifically speculative, about such beings. I'm not sure who came up with the idea first in developed form, although Vernor Vinge is the most famous proponent; but the idea is that a sufficiently powerful computer (with the right software, not a trivial problem!) will equal the capacity of a human brain and then inevitably and rather quickly, exceed it - and many people think that, for a while at least, the increase will be exponential.

The term "transapient" has been bandied about. As far as I can make out, the idea is that a sapient being with thinking capacity enough greater than human will transfer into a new realm in which said being would have access to new modes of thought incomprehensible to humans. Just as, for example, humans can think of and manipulate concepts that (for example) a dog, no matter how long it has to consider the matter, is incapable of understanding.

Whether you believe that to be true is up to you. I think that some people here will get to find out. Probably not including me, unfortunately.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 3, 2014)

No. The internet does not meet a single criteria for any textbook definition of 'god' or 'deity.' Not the least of which is self-awareness or intelligence.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 3, 2014)

Agreed Sodice
Nor does it spy on us. It's people running Facebook, Google, Government agencies that are spying on us.

It's purely a communications medium between computers entirely programmed and operated by humans.
Computer AI people cheat. They use a special definition of AI so that they can get grants or sell software. No-one has exactly defined natural Intelligence yet. As someone involved in professional programming over 30 years I can tell you there is no AI.
You can make a slow computer with mechanical relays. Turing proved that such a computer can run any program that can be specified. AI isn't a question of more computers that are faster, more complex and more memory, if it was we could have had really slow AI 30 years ago.
Computers only run programs. These are designed and coded by people. There are no truly adaptive or "self learning" systems. They are pre-programmed and can have data added.

The Internet will never be a God.


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## Mirannan (Aug 3, 2014)

Ray - To just about any of your points I could say "so far".

BTW, you said it yourself. Or reminded us that Turing did; "such a computer can run any program that can be specified." I would say that includes the program that's running inside the three pounds of meat computer inside your skull. Even though nobody can specify that.

As for slow computers being able to do anything fast ones can; well, perhaps. But can they do it in a period of time that makes the fact useful? As a non-trivial example, it was probably possible to do a 3-day weather forecast just as good as the ones we now have, at least ignoring the lack of data, with the computers of 1960 - but that wouldn't have been much use if the program took three years to run.

I'm not an IT or AI professional but the best approach to strong AI seems to be the evolutionary approach. And the front-runner among theories of consciousness appears to be that consciousness/sapience is an emergent phenomenon in a highly complex computer with many concurrent processes that all affect each other.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 3, 2014)

No-one even knows if we are meat computers. Much less the program.


> I'm not an IT or AI professional but the best approach to strong AI  seems to be the evolutionary approach. And the front-runner among  theories of consciousness appears to be that consciousness/sapience is  an emergent phenomenon in a highly complex computer with many concurrent  processes that all affect each other.


There is NO Computer or Program Evolution. It's all intelligent design. Evolution of what?

Complexity will not result in Intelligence.



> front-runner among  theories of consciousness


Really? 
I don't think we have any theories of conciousness. Just some philosophical musing.



> many concurrent  processes that all affect each other


I've been designing parallel systems since 1983. They aid in implementing solutions to certain classes of problems. The important aspect of design is to ensure they have NO effect on each other, or else deadlock is possible.

You can't do ANYTHING on the most complex computer today that can't be done on the simplest computer, except a lot slower. Complexity just makes it harder to have a bug free program.

Computers only execute logical tests which can cause a branch, arithmetic or moving data. Nothing else. They are really more limited than the simplest insect.

If we could do slow AI that takes 6 weeks and we need it in 0.06 seconds, that is a problem that can be solved. We can't do any AI at all.  Except in a fake sense defined by "AI researchers". AI research isn't even trying to create machine based intelligence any more, but working on schemes to solve particular niche problems. Chess or Recognising faces isn't done by AI, no matter what the popular media says. It's done completely differently to how we "suspect" humans do it. Sheep can recognise people's faces after many years. We actually have no idea how!


It's important not to confuse stuff that's fun in fiction with reality.


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## tinkerdan (Aug 3, 2014)

Neuroscience, evolution and the sapient paradox: the factuality of value and of the sacred

Evolution of Sapience

So does anyone have good references on Sentience other than Star Trek or their local religion.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 3, 2014)

Sadly that's about as good as it gets.

We are clueless.


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## Mirannan (Aug 3, 2014)

Ray - By the evolutionary approach I meant the (now fairly commonly used, I understand) approach of creating numerous slightly different algorithms to accomplish a task, and letting them at the task - and then selecting the algorithms that do it best, and allow minor random changes in the code. Rinse and repeat for a great number of iterations and one gets an algorithm that does the job well - and often in a way no human programmer would have coded.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 4, 2014)

> creating numerous slightly different algorithms to accomplish a task, and letting them at the task -  and then selecting the algorithms that do it best, and allow minor random changes in the code.


I'm afraid that's fiction. Anyone that claims they have done that is either being incorrectly reported or deliberately misleading.

If you spent even 4 weeks learning to program with a good teacher you'd know:
1) Numerous slightly different algorithms can be done. But a hugely expensive scatter gun approach. Proper design is better. Full exercising of a program to see what it does in all circumstances is really difficult, studies find that if that approach is used to find bugs, then at least as many bugs remain. Quality is designed in, not tested in.
2)A True Random number is extremely difficult to do and needs extra hardware. 
3) Put even a single Random instruction change in a program and the likely scenario is that the program doesn't work any more. Programs are very fragile. It's not like biology and DNA.

Program "evolution" doesn't exist.


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## Mirannan (Aug 4, 2014)

Ray, take a look at this:

Evolutionary Computation


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 4, 2014)

Unfortunately it's aspirational nonsense got up by "AI Researchers" to get grants.

Much of the terminology is deliberately misleading.
I've done AI research, been on an AI University course and studied all the leading computer science experts since 1970s

*It's not what it sounds like.*

This is nothing to do with Darwin, Evolution or Genetics. They are like  Humpty Dumpty, making words mean what ever they want.

There isn't a single "real" application example outside of pretty simulations of "automatic evolution of computer programs"

By all means recycle this stuff and the press releases into SF&F. But any application that actually does anything is just plain old computer programming.

I'm quite conversant with so called Genetic algorithms, neural networks, AI, Expert Systems etc. It's all just jargon for particular programming approaches. The names have no relationship to biology or the real world. I've even used Prolog since 1980s. I've also designed three languages for specific purposes.
Experienced in C++, Modula-2, Chill, Occam, Pascal, C, Java, C#, Forth and Prolog

The three laws of Robotics are also fiction.


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## JoanDrake (Aug 4, 2014)

Maybe


Rebooting the Cosmos: Is the Universe the Ultimate Computer? [Replay] - Scientific American


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## Gramm838 (Aug 4, 2014)

No.

It's a bunch of electrons moving around the world very quickly.

Of course to mis-quote Douglas Adams, "no-one ever asked the electrons if that's where they wanted to go..."


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 5, 2014)

Or photons. Most is fibre except the bit that connects you to your ISP.

Actually though electrical signals in wires run at 75% to 90% of light speed the electrons only jiggle a bit. They don't move along the wires for AC.


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## Mirannan (Aug 5, 2014)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Or photons. Most is fibre except the bit that connects you to your ISP.
> 
> Actually though electrical signals in wires run at 75% to 90% of light speed the electrons only jiggle a bit. They don't move along the wires for AC.



They don't move particularly fast for DC, either. Not that it matters in the case of signal transmission.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 5, 2014)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Actually though electrical signals in wires run at 75% to 90% of light speed the electrons only jiggle a bit. They don't move along the wires for AC.



So we can refer to electrons as 'twerking' in a story? Awesome.





Sorry, I will leave now.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 5, 2014)

Mirannan said:


> They don't move particularly fast for DC, either. Not that it matters in the case of signal transmission.


Yes, depends on the volts / metre and material. Faster in a valve for same volts/metre, but the distance is larger than in a transistor. 

Backward wave tubes, Travelling wave tubes, Klystrons and Magnetrons (WWII Radar and later, also all microwave ovens) all utilise the actual velocity of the electrons due to voltage difference and distance with other factors to oscillate or amplify. Possibly also the Trochotron (predecessor to Dekatron counter tube).

The signal of switching on or off the DC travels nearly at the speed of light as that is a propagation of a wave in the wire.

I'm getting too old. I had to look up 'twerking'. Never heard of it. Now I need to rinse out my brain.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 8, 2014)

20 Impressive Internet Statistics - SocialTimes

1.73 Billion users in 2009! 
The most god-like thing humans have ever created, no?

Internet Live Stats - Internet Usage & Social Media Statistics

Anyways our definition of god keeps expanding through the times thus god(s) cannot be defined so easily anymore. It used to be gods on Olympus, or afterlife like Egypt. It seems to have become a definition of something which created the universe. But that comes in conflict with the ideal/definition of the word "Universe" which means everything in existence. If anything, the universe created itself, and the universe created god(s) thus the totality of existence.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 8, 2014)

Users are not Worshippers


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## Michael Colton (Aug 9, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> Anyways our definition of god keeps expanding through the times thus god(s) cannot be defined so easily anymore.



This sort of phrasing always irks me. Yes, what deities were worshipped has changed over time - but they were always deities that still fit a specific dictionary definition. If one wants to head down some animistic or holistic rabbit trail, more power to you - but spirits are different than gods. There is a reason the term 'god-like' exists: it is for describing things that have qualities similar to gods, but do not qualify. This is what you are looking for. It still does not apply to the internet, but at least the question is more plausible on its face.


OED:


> A superhuman person regarded as having power over nature and human fortunes; a deity (use in the singular usually refers to a being regarded as male (cf. goddess n.), but in the plural frequently used to refer to male and female beings collectively). Chiefly applied to the divinities of polytheistic systems; when applied to the Supreme Being of monotheistic belief, this sense becomes more or less modified



The internet does not have sentience (the person part), does not have power over nature or human fortunes, and does not qualify for any theistic system (poly or mono) which requires worship.

When we say that definitions change over time this means that they _change to something else_, meaning they still actually _have_ definitions. Acknowledging that terms change does not mean we get to arbitrarily define them. The notion of 'god' transformed to no longer be exclusive to polytheistic belief systems - but it has not changed to mean non-sentient and non-worshipped beings that do not have power over nature or humans.

Yes, definitions change over time. But this does not mean that we get to arbitrarily change them ourselves or disregard them.


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## Gramm838 (Aug 9, 2014)

Sodice said:


> There is a reason the term 'god-like' exists: it is for describing things that have qualities similar to gods, but do not qualify.



The reason for the term god-like is to mean 'it's inexplicable therefore it must be something done by a god', and it was surely a term coined when people didn't know any better (ie thousands of years ago); no rational person in the 21st Century can really believe something is god-like.

If only people would get that simple point into their thick heads, the world would be a much nicer and safer place...


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Well it still is godlike in the sense that it is greater than any one man's ability. It is more on a societal civilization scale which has also deemed god-like, such as living gods who affect things in such a degree it is considered god-like. Before, I have heard both Bill Gates and George Bush referred to as being either "God or the Devil". Or for people who do things of a unbelievable ability but do not affect society in such a profound way are called demi-god status like Heracles.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> Well it still is godlike in the sense that it is greater than any one man's ability. It is more on a societal civilization scale which has also deemed god-like, such as living gods who affect things in such a degree it is considered god-like. Before, I have heard both Bill Gates and George Bush referred to as being either "God or the Devil". Or for people who do things of a unbelievable ability but do not affect society in such a profound way are called demi-god status like Heracles.



The internet itself has no ability. It is a tool enhancing the ability of others. It does not 'do' anything, it has no action, no ability to change anything on its own because it does not 'act.'


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Michael Colton said:


> The internet itself has no ability. It is a tool enhancing the ability of others. It does not 'do' anything, it has no action, no ability to change anything on its own because it does not 'act.'



It has algorithms, it has bots, it has computer processes, and it has us users/netizens which work for the internet.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

No, the internet works for them. All of the things you mentioned were created by users, for users, are controlled by users. The internet has no intelligence, no sentience, no ability to act.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Michael Colton said:


> No, the internet works for them. All of the things you mentioned were created by users, for users, are controlled by users. The internet has no intelligence, no sentience, no ability to act.



I would like to agree with you, but sometimes I wonder. Is man master of his tools, or is man a slave to technology? Can we stop the internet and technological progression if we wanted to? If we are stewards/servants to the things in our lives are we also not slaves to them to? Our possessions also demand things from us in order to maintain it's existence. A house still needs for us to maintain it, for us to repair, and for us to paid the bills and taxes on it, no?


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

You are combining terms. There is nothing to "stop" with the internet or technological progression in and of themselves - it is humankind developing those things that can be stopped. It is humanity that is doing the action because we are capable of that action. Internet and technology are not capable of any action on their own. It is only through us that they can be utilized. Being dependent upon something is not the same thing as being a slave to it. Slavery implies a _will_ whose actions you are controlled by. The internet and technology have no will, no actions, no intelligence. All of those things are capacities of humans.

You are giving the internet and technology traits of persons which they simply do not and cannot have.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Michael Colton said:


> You are combining terms. There is nothing to "stop" with the internet or technological progression in and of themselves - it is humankind developing those things that can be stopped. It is humanity that is doing the action because we are capable of that action. Internet and technology are not capable of any action on their own. It is only through us that they can be utilized. Being dependent upon something is not the same thing as being a slave to it. Slavery implies a _will_ whose actions you are controlled by. The internet and technology have no will, no actions, no intelligence. All of those things are capacities of humans.
> 
> You are giving the internet and technology traits of persons which they simply do not and cannot have.



But are there not certain qualities which are inherent with any thing? Such as the dominant strategy, 
( Strategic dominance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )
that arises from the inherent qualities associated with anything. For example a tank is of a certain size, speed, and armor due to the fundamental laws of physics and the inherent qualities of the materials used in it's construction. If given the same materials but put under a different situation eventually they develop similar consistences due to the weight of the material armor, in relationship to energy available, etc, etc. Certain things develop for certain reasons. Thus there could be no other solution for the main battle tanks we see today because it is the dominant choice due to fundamental forces affecting this environment(this planet) available at the time. Thus there might be what you call a fundamental will or as creationists call it a Intelligent Design, though there still is evolution as things change and there is variation in the sphere of existence, the fundamental forces at play causes certain manifestation to occur in a certain way and have certain qualities and traits due to the dominant forces and strategy. 

I am not sure if I am making sense as it is becoming rather theoretical, and thus harder to prove (science needs to be falsifiable to have validity).


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## Michael Colton (Aug 11, 2014)

Your tank example is the result of human engineering and tactics, not some evolution of the machinery. As before, you are taking the sentience and intelligence of humans and projecting them onto technology that humans have developed. The sentience and intelligence is entirely at work within the humans, not the technology. The programming reasons for why this will always be the case were explained very thoroughly by Ray early in the thread.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 11, 2014)

Well if you look at animals, they all tend to have two eyes, and similar limbs and organs for the most part. Now is this because of evolution or a creator being? Either way there is a common dominant phenomenon that occurs, of course there are one offs and mutants, but there is a common value or mean that occurs in the population.

Also there are different level of sentience no? A slug or insect can have sentience so can humans, but it's only their level of consciousness. As we run more scientific experiments we find animals such as chimps and dolphins are not as stupid as once we thought of them. Well, even plants might have sentience as flowers have been known to adjust their position towards the Sun during the day. If I hook up light sensors to my computer, which is hooked up to the internet, which has automated functions which cause it to respond, such as shutting off the lights, then it could be said there is a level sentience to the internet. How much is the question.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 11, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> As we run more scientific experiments we find animals such as chimps and dolphins are not as stupid as once we thought of them.



Or we may be anthropomorphising them and they are less smart than we think. It's a common mistake to read our motives and reasoning into similar behaviour exhibited by animals. 
Crows turn out to be very "smart". They might be as smart as Dolphins despite having tiny brains. It was thought originally the Caledonian crow was the only "tool using" crow. But it seems that UK rooks don't use tools because they don't need to. In a lab setting, where there was no other alternative to eat, the UK rooks even "made" tools. They didn't have to learn it off another bird. They demonstrated creative problem solving. It seems to the old Greek legend of a crow dropping stones into a jug is true too.  Rooks can count and recognise people too. They know which humans usually have the shotgun and if the same number of people have come out of a building than went in.  

There are loads of the crow family here (rooks, jackdaw, some magpies, a few carrion crow / hoodie crow, not seen ravens). They don't seem smarter than other birds to look at.




AlexanderSen said:


> Well, even plants might have sentience as flowers have been known to adjust their position towards the Sun during the day. If I hook up light sensors to my computer, which is hooked up to the internet, which has automated functions which cause it to respond, such as shutting off the lights, then it could be said there is a level sentience to the internet. How much is the question.


You are confusing Sentience and other mechanisms. Tracking the brightest part of sky (sunflowers do it) or signalling sensors over the Internet is nothing to do with sentience. It's just a mechanism like a clock is a mechanism.

I don't think there is any proof of this.


> A slug or insect can have sentience


It may be a suitable experiment hasn't been designed. They certainly respond to stimulus, but that isn't evidence of sentience.



> A house still needs for us to maintain it, for us to repair, and for us to paid the bills and taxes on it, no?


It's an inanimate object. Only a human wanting to live in it or sell it cares about these things. A house doesn't _need_ anything, in the sense people do, never mind animals. It's no different to a rock on a hillside.




> Well if you look at animals, they all tend to have two eyes, and similar  limbs and organs for the most part. Now is this because of evolution or  a creator being?


Form is related to function. It could be either or both (God as "watchmaker" and Evolution is part of the mechanism of the "watch"). So this point has nothing to do with sentience, and ultimately tells us nothing about God and very little about evolution.  Spiders have 8 eyes and bleed to death easily. The Octopus may be "smart" (hard to be sure) but has two hearts, copper based blood and 8 limbs.  Monotremes are odd (Mono = one, only one "hole" at back), such as Duck Billed Platypus (and spiny anteater?). Marsupials are moderately odd, the Kangaroo's tail is effectively a third leg. Flying squirrels are odd too (Marsupial, not at all Squirrels who are really cute rats, rodentia anyway.)


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 12, 2014)

I thought this sort of related to the topic so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TryOC83PH1g&list=PL73A886F2DD959FF1&index=3

But is the internet sentient? What about humans? Are we not just biological machines? Just a series of biological processes? I read somewhere, unfortunately I can't seem to find the link, that our consciousness is a series of processes which compete for dominance (aka top of mind). Is that not just a computer with different programs running in the background competing for RAM space? Of course there is an end user which are humans, and in that sense are humans might be called god in a way (but this brings other questions of god to arise such as if god created the universe who created god)

But initial question of this thread is more about the internet as a god-like being. The internet, if taking the definition of competing processes for consciousness, then in some ways, is like a giant brain. Greater than any one man or computer (cell) it has a quasi-intelligence as its programming  is akin to human genetics(DNA). Thus we are on the cusp of seeing the creation and birth (although more of a process than any actual moment in time) of a highly sentient intelligence outside the human consciousness.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 12, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> Are we not just biological machines? Just a series of biological processes?



The internet is not biological whatsoever, let alone having the same biological processes as humans.



AlexanderSen said:


> But initial question of this thread is more about the internet as a god-like being.



It is not a being. It is a tool. A hammer to be swung by humans, only much more complex - but the same category of object nonetheless.

The internet does not have sentience nor does it have the capacity to gain it. This is why artificial sentience is within the realm of science fiction. A fascinating literary theme that can be used in fiction in very fun and interesting ways, but it is not attached to reality. It is not similar to cryogenics in that it is merely implausible in reality. The internet gaining sentience is quite literally impossible, not simply implausible. There is no evolutionary force at work, there is no corollary between the functions of the internet and information technology and the human brain.

I usually avoid dropping links on people, but since this discussion seems to be going in circles: Sentience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The part under the category of "Artificial Intelligence" is what is causing the snag in this thread.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 12, 2014)

But is not the human mind, aka. "sentience," just a series of bio-electrical impulses? And, is not the internet is just a series of electrical impulses? How do you know sentience is not just energy? Our consciousness functions on a series of electrical synapses or circuits firing to create a conscious entity, that could be also said of the internet.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 12, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> But is not the human mind, aka. "sentience," just a series of bio-electrical impulses? And, is not the internet is just a series of electrical impulses? How do you know sentience is not just energy? Our consciousness functions on a series of electrical synapses or circuits firing to create a conscious entity, that could be also said of the internet.



No, it could not for reasons that have already been explained in this thread. I do not mean to be rude, but I think I have run out of ways to respond at this point. Cheers.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 14, 2014)

I don't mind. I am actually enjoying exploring this discussion about Internet and Intelligence. 

Is sentience our own consciousness or the consciousness of others? How can we measure another sentience or intelligence? If a smarter man man assesses a dumber man does he deem him unintelligent? Or does the dumber man have intelligence of a different kind? Many beings have ability to respond to stimuli in the environment, but to what degree do we call it sentience. If you look the Venus Fly Trap it is a plant yet it still has the ability to respond to stimuli in the environment. So is it still considered unintelligent like plants? Yet even plants respond to sunlight. Maybe there intelligence is of a slower kind, measured not in seconds and minutes but in months and years. A slower and or a less complex intelligence it still has a level of intelligence. For example we don't know what is it like to be like a bat unless we are one, as bats use their sonar and other specific attributes to give them understanding that we ourselves as humans cannot understand subjectively. 

I understand your frustration, it might not be the right section, but I am working on several scifi books, so I am more of a creative type who likes to explore ideas, and this is the SCI-FI forums after all.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 14, 2014)

The most common and straightforward definition of sentience is 'is the ability to feel, perceive, or to experience subjectivity.' This only applies to humans as far as we know and it certainly does not apply to any machine or technology. The matter is really as simple as 'impossibility.' It is as impossible for the internet to become sentient as it is for red to be blue or two and two to equal five. It is impossible in the most literal sense of the term 'impossible,' which makes the discussion rather pointless if one is talking about the real world and the internet in it.

Creating a fictional world setting in which AI has sentience is an entirely different matter - one that is very fun, interesting, and exciting to discuss. But it is entirely separate from the real world. And while I realize this is a SFF forum, your attempt to connect real life and the internet to science fiction notions of AI sentience was the my difficulty - not the fictional themes of AI and sentience. AI and sentience within science fiction I agree is a very fun theme.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 14, 2014)

> If you look the Venus Fly Trap it is a plant yet it still has the  ability to respond to stimuli in the environment. So is it still  considered unintelligent like plants?



Responding to stimulus like this is no indication of intelligence or sentience. A mouse trap responds too (once). An Electric mouse trap could dispose of the body and reset. That would not make it intelligent. A Venus fly trap is a biological mechanism that has no creativity or problem solving ability. Within the parameters of its construction it responds in a deterministic, mechanistic manner to same stimulus in the same way.


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## AlexanderSen (Aug 14, 2014)

Is it wrong to assume other things have intelligence? Although we do not know what it thinks, we do know it exists traits such as responding to stimuli in the environment, thus must have some sort of internal regulation and however limited it is but it is a form of self awareness. 

Plant perception (physiology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Therefore, plants could be said to have limited or a fundamental form of awareness/consciousness/sentience/intelligence. The problem though, is defining it in a way we all understand as all these words mean the same thing, but in different degrees. 

The question, IMHO, is not whether they have intelligence but how much and to what degree.


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## Ray McCarthy (Aug 14, 2014)

> Therefore, plants could be said to have limited or a fundamental form of awareness/consciousness/sentience/intelligence.


No, not at all.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 14, 2014)

AlexanderSen said:


> Is it wrong to assume other things have intelligence?



Yes, because intelligence is something that can be studied, measured, and demonstrated - there is no reason to assume. And you keep jumping between intelligence and sentience, which are related but distinct concepts. But neither should be assumed.



AlexanderSen said:


> we do know it exists traits such as responding to stimuli in the environment, thus must have some sort of internal regulation and however limited it is but it is a form of self awareness.



As Ray said, responding to stimuli does not equal intelligence or self-awareness. If you go to the doctor and he hits your knee with that cute little hammer to test your reflexes and your knee moves, it is responding to stimuli. Does that mean your knee has its own intelligence? Surely not.


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## Mirannan (Aug 14, 2014)

I've seen the word "sentience" used in a rather different way and the word "sapience" added.

One definition of sentience is the ability to sense and react (by actively doing something) to stimuli. On that basis, sentience is a continuum ranging all the way from something completely non-sentient (rock, glass of water) to minimal sentience (heating thermostat, binary reaction) to things like amoebae all the way to some of the more intelligent mammals and birds (raccoons, cats, crows).

Sapience is the ability to sense self; also to make plans by running scenarios in one's head. It's also a continuum; some animals are minimally sapient, the candidates being in dispute but probably including elephants, dolphins, orcas and the great apes. Of course, humans are the ones making all the distinctions so of course we are defined as sapient.  (I've met some people for whom that is somewhat doubtful.)

Unfortunately, the entire subject is rife with sloppy definitions and bias.


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## Michael Colton (Aug 14, 2014)

The definitions are not so much sloppy as they are variable by field or context.

Sentience is a form of subjective self-awareness.

Sapience is more attached to intelligence in the sense of being able to apply problem-solving and knowledge to that sentience.

But the primary difficulty, as you implied in your last sentence, is that sapience has taken on a different meaning in fiction - especially science fiction. If you look it up in various dictionaries, several actually have a secondary definition that begins with 'In science fiction:". This does not help sort things out.


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## paranoid marvin (Aug 14, 2014)

An interesting question. Do people spend more time with thoughts of their maker or with their PC/tablet/mobile? Who do they look for answers to? And most importantly do people have more faith in the internet providing solutions to their problems or to their preferred deity?

When it comes down to it though, when it really matters, when we are facing death or serious physical injury to ourselves or to our loved ones, who do we turn to - God or the internet? The internet may provide s way to spend our lives, but will never replace or become God.


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## Bick (Aug 14, 2014)

paranoid marvin said:


> When it comes down to it though, when it really matters, when we are facing death or serious physical injury to ourselves or to our loved ones, who do we turn to - God or the internet?


The internet.
I was very sick a few years ago - I obtained some solace by learning more about how I would probably recover by searching the internet for information, and I didn't give a single thought to a deity of any kind.



			
				paranoid marvin said:
			
		

> The internet may provide a way to spend our lives, but will never replace or become God.


I don't see why not.  God as a concept is been replaced in the lives of countless people the world over - much more so for the current generation than ever before. 'Replacing God' is a strange term, as for most atheists, there is no need to find a replacement.  Having said that, in the sense that God has, over the millennia, provided a pragmatic system that brings cohesion to societies (the function of religion), one could argue that this function could be assumed by a socially-binding technology, such as the internet.


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## Gramm838 (Aug 18, 2014)

God hasn't done any such thing as provide a pragmatic system...the belief that there is a God may have done so, but look back at history and wonder how much better off we would be now without the centuries-worth of psychological abuse and conditioning (and of course it's still going on now) in the promotion of such a belief.


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## Nick B (Aug 18, 2014)

60% of internet hits are on sex sites, does that sound like any religion you know of? Oh wait...




This was intended as comedy and in no way insinuates that any religion or religious practitioners either living or dead are in any way associated with sexual deviancy ...


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## JoanDrake (Aug 19, 2014)

Michael Colton said:


> The internet is not biological whatsoever, let alone having the same biological processes as humans.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Prove that you are not a computer responding to this. Perhaps some sort of experiment where a computer has been assigned to monitor the Internet for this very topic and then join the discussion with just your viewpoint. That would be an interesting study, after all.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 30, 2014)

Only if we make it such.


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## chongjasmine (Sep 10, 2014)

The internet is not god.
But I really enjoy it.
We can do so much with it.


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## WinterLight (Sep 10, 2014)

I see sentience as the ability to question 'why?' ('why do I exist' is my defining question but Im thinking just 'why' is enough). Im not aware of any tests that have disproved sentience in other creatures however we are allowed to make informed assumptions based on what we do know, and can assume that sentience will be accompanied by a high level of intelligence which many creatures just do not possess. Personally I believe there is a chance the whales and dolphins might have this ability. Did I just say that? Wow. Well I just can't say its definitely not true with any real conviction...

Internet becoming sentient? What a question. I am thinking it would be a new definition of the word and also it would not then be the internet. where are we with AI these days anyway? 

I see intelligence simply as the ability to make a choice. 

A damning clause to the idea of internet being God, to entertain the notion, could be that (the) 'God(s)', in all forms that human beings have conjured up since the dawn of man (that I am aware of), came _before_ the people. Whereas the internet came after. 

What an interesting bunch you are.


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## AlexanderSen (Sep 22, 2014)

In regards to plants and intelligence. 






If plants are considered to have intelligence of some sort what about computers? 

I probably should start another topic on the mind of plants.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 22, 2014)

There is no evidence for intelligence in plants. Yes, they do react to the environment.  There is a tendency for people to have an anthropomorphic interpretation of what they observe. Even if there was, it would say nothing about computers. Computers are merely collections of switches running a set of instructions crafted by a human. Plants are collections of biological processes, many of which we don't understand. Nor can we make a plant from scratch.

It's not impossible on some other planet that there are sentient / intelligent creatures that we might decide are more vegetable than animal.
Here is a very interesting animal. Almost certainly not sentient / intelligent.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)

What we can propose in a story can of course be very different to the real world. In a story you could have a sentient super intelligent "network" of unspecified exact operation, or an  intelligent shade of  blue. But not in the real world. The Internet is only a network and only a more complex  machine than a wind up clock. A computer is like a clock with all the cog wheels replaced by parts controlled by predetermined instructions. It's not at all like a biological brain.

The original Jewish Golem stories  are  interesting (12th to 19th Century) and unlike the similar Frankenstein Monster doesn't rely on re-animating a previously living human (though the bits are from different people). Unlike the Frankenstein story, the commonest form of Golem story has them as perfectly but blindly following instructions very like an Industrial robot. Was the 1920s RUR and Frankenstein (1818) inspired by Golem stories (I don't think Frankenstein was)?
While RUR is the origin of the modern word Robot they are not even as mechanical as Star Trek's Data or Asimov's Robots but more like an artificially synthesised version of Frankenstein's 'monster'.  The more common Golem tale is very like today's robots with the written words of activation and spoken words of command replaced by computer programming.  The idea of constructing my own is curiously compelling, but while I can easily do the programming, I don't have the budget for the mechanical parts.  I'd power it with LPG and a generator. Battery life is too poor and use radio links to my Media PC and Attic Server for video camera, microphones, speaker and control with a local micro-controller for the servo control loops / movement, thus it would essentially be identical to a Mars Rover but in a Golem shaped mechanism rather than a wheeled platform.  Maybe I should crowd source fund it


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## BAYLOR (Nov 9, 2014)

It has the sum of human knowledge . Or it seems to.


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## tinkerdan (Nov 9, 2014)

If we are to assume there is a God, and that that God was there before anything else, and that God created everything and that before that there was nothing[except God]. Then either God created everything from nothing or everything came from God and the universe is all a part of God. We are a part of God and the Internet is a part of God.

If God created everything from nothing then it is a mystery that God doesn't want us to learn yet; because all we have around us teaches us that you can't create something from nothing.

If it is that all this  comes from God then the only way that a computer could become god would be to spread out beyond the ends of the universe and even so, for all that we know, the universe might not be anything more than a mole on the face of god and that could make the internet less than one hair growing from that mole.


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## BAYLOR (Nov 9, 2014)

We could all be living in the Matrix for all we know or something like it.


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## J Riff (Nov 13, 2014)

Nah, it's no good. It's just as censored as all-get-out. Pack o' lies, wouldn't trust it for a minute. Mind control for the masses, a soporific mess, worse than TV. Awful. But this place is okay.


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