with recursive self-representation

Figuring out what to credit and what to blame is one of the knottiest problems in AI, and it is also a problem faced by natural selection.

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science, just science that has been conducted without any consideration of its underlying philosophical assumptions.

By working with scientists I get a rich diet of fascinating and problematic facts to think about, but by staying a philosopher without a lab or a research grant, I get to think about all the theories and experiments and never have to do the dishes.

How to compose a successful critical commentary: 1. You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.” 2. You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement). 3. You should

Imagine you’ve written a chess program, and you feed its source code to two different compilers. Then play the two compiled versions against each other on the same computer. Even though the two versions “think all the same thoughts in the same order” (they have to—they have exactly the same source code), one may always beat the other simply because

Try to acquire the weird practice of savoring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you, and go on to the next big opportunity.

informational states that are about its other internal states. Further self-monitoring allows a zimbo to have and use information about those very self-monitoring states, and so on, indefinitely. A zimbo, in other words, is equipped with recursive self-representation—unconscious recursive self-representation, if that makes any sense.

Attributed to William of Ockham (or Occam), the fourteenth-century logician and philosopher, this thinking tool is actually a much older rule of thumb. A Latin name for it is lex parsimoniae, the law of parsimony. It is usually put into English as the maxim “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.” The idea is straightforward: don’t concoct a