But just remember, we are the only observed entities that _create_ meaning, complex, rich, nuanced meaning. We are the meaning generators of the universe.
If the universe has a random forest walk to create meaning, to try new cool stuff, to hold a mirror to and understand itself.
We are it.
We don't know and ex ante can't predict which human(s) might reverse entropy, alter the topology of the universe, prevent an asteroid from wiping us out, escape the bounds of this reality.
None of those things may ever happen, but as far as I know they haven't been strictly ruled out yet.
If I were to put myself in Archimedes' shoes (when he basically discovered calculus) motivation comes from "this is nuts but it could work" and meaning comes from "yep that works!"
Information is physical and part of the physical entropic universe, Landauer showed that.
When we imagine something in our brain we are physically testing or creating something even if ephemeral, these thoughts you make have meaning and are real just with low distribution.
They can be very complex thoughts, you can invent worlds and objects and play around with them in your mind for relatively low cost, this is the root of humanities power, the ability to create meaning, to create arbitrary coherence (even if it's just internal coherence)
You can distribute this meaning to others, as a written or spoken word.
You can investigate if your thought has correspondence to something that exists in the exterior world. This can be science and discovery.
But you can also create something that you know doesn't exist and then work to have it realized in the external world.
What's the casual path from Gene Rondenberry to the iPod? Hard to compute.
We create meaning. It's what we do.
The funny thing is this, we keep talking about people's search for meaning, but if we look at the observable facts, to speak poetically, if the universe was sentient (and I don't personally believe it is) it would be looking to us to see what meaning we create and new shit we discover and why it works the way it does.
Maybe all i'm suggesting is that AI can help us quickly check that what we humans are working on is indeed insane ( and switch to something else if it passes their sanity checks)
The causal path from Rodenderry to the ipod .. is.. easy to approximate compared to the causal path from Zen Monks to Darth Vader.. (though they are in roughly opposite directions)
But just remember, we are the only observed entities that _create_ meaning, complex, rich, nuanced meaning. We are the meaning generators of the universe.
If the universe has a random forest walk to create meaning, to try new cool stuff, to hold a mirror to and understand itself.
We are it.
We don't know and ex ante can't predict which human(s) might reverse entropy, alter the topology of the universe, prevent an asteroid from wiping us out, escape the bounds of this reality.
None of those things may ever happen, but as far as I know they haven't been strictly ruled out yet.
It's early days yet.